blogs are dead?

Kill your blog, apparently, unless you happen to be a pro-blogger with hundreds of readers. In order to get through to people and be heard you might as well Twitter and comment on the big blogs, which have taken all the bandwidth anyway. If having an audience is what you want then forget it or join the big boys. Or maybe you just want a diary and a few trusted commentators...

User-generated what?

According to the Guardian Networking blog [you spotting the theme to today's postings? Well, ok it was in the Observer] amateurs who move towards making a living from their on-line presence risk attacks from readers who make it their business to critique self-publishers [self-publicists?], who then are left burned out and blogged out. The article goes on "The backlash started in earnest last year when Andrew Keen, a former dotcom entrepreneur, published Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture, an attack on what he sees as a noisy crowd with little interesting to say."

I've little sympathy for Keen - publicly and professionally we have the ability to avoid, ignore, forget about the babble, in the same way that we can avoid Heat magazine and the dross of the Premiership if we want. However, the telling point for me is enabling our staff and students to understand how to present themselves in a context of risk that they recognise and accept, be that using Ning.com or facebook, blogger or Twitter, or Scribble. Publish and be damned.

Session - the end of the essay? Enhancing students writing through new media led by Michael Powell (AAD)

Really enjoyed the session that we had yesterday, so for those who missed it - the key areas for me was the ‘reinforcement’ & feedback opportunity that blogging allows which can be spread over time and given at regular intervals which over the essay appears far superior as Michael described than when assessed in one chunk in an ‘essay’. Writing or blogging in this way appears to allow you to pick up on both strengths and weaknesses of a student which can be worked on and built. I also like the way that it adds more depth to the relationship the student has on their course journey and developing a sense of community amongst peers (I should mention here, the Game Art student blogs are ‘public’ and available to all level of students in the course). In a sense, (the blog) is like a PDP in disguise even though the student is not aware of it! (Don’t tell the students that!)
As Michael pointed out, you can see how it can become overwhelming for the tutor as you can’t give feedback on all individual blog entries and this is where you need some basic ‘rules of engagement’ (maybe peer to peer review?). The concern though about adding ‘structure’ to blogs so that you pre define entry titles (so assessment could be easier for the tutor) defeats the object and could stifle the fluidity of it and engagement. For me, blogs are very much a developmental process (and can go beyond their course) for the student and thus should and would contain evidence of strengths, weaknesses, understanding etc, its part and parcel of developing their skills and to hopefully attain ‘what’ is needed from the exercise. The informality of writing freely allows the student to express themselves without being too overly concerned that they are being monitored, so you can see the attraction. I do think blogs are transferable across a range of disciplines, for some an applied structure may work and a manageable time frame. Overall a great a session..thanks Michael.

WP1: PG Cert HE session - part 2

Okay, it's day two and we are really focused upon wikis and blogs, and the key issues raised in-class follow...

• How can we use wikis for formative assessment. Simon got his students to answer issues in Health Care Management in week 15 - he took them through how to use them, and over the next week in groups, in-class they engaged with the questions more deeply, and provided feedback to each other. Some embraced the task by creating new pages, others by posting comments on a single page. Time in-class and (student) self-management (setting up rules) were critical.
• How do we separate out group and individual elements in the assessment process?
• How do we validate "perfectly scripted" answers? Here the technology/presentation vehicle is irrelevant.
• How do we ensure a good conceptual grasp at levels 1, 2, 3?
• Blogs are great for reflective logs, with shared/peer/mentor critique.
• Can we use assessment in these tools to engage students in the learning process, through self-management/peer assessment?
• How do we build tasks that stimulate critical literacy?
  
  
  Developing rubrics for peer-assessment is critical.

The most influential blog of the year - Edublog Awards 2007

Is It Okay To Be A Technologically Illiterate Teacher?

An excerpt from the blog:

If a teacher today is not technologically literate - and is unwilling to make the effort to learn more - it's equivalent to a teacher 30 years ago who didn't know how to read and write.

Extreme? Maybe. Your thoughts?

Give me a 'learning' network anyday

A few of the following thoughts crossed my mind as a title for this blog. What is the point of this blog? (not in a sarcastic way), what is the purpose of this blog? I ask these questions because i am wondering whether another vehicle i.e a ning social networking site would be a far far better option to better foster debate and discussion on the many interesting blog entries that are posted.

My assumption is that a lot of the blog posts are initiated to stimulate interest, discussion and maybe illicit a response. The comment feature i believe is inadequate to encourage debate and don't think it has really designed for that purpose.

If this blog is just about relaying information then this can be done just as easily on a ning social network environment with all the added benefits of further developing arguments and discussions.

I don't know what the dynamics or the chemistry involved are but these easily created personalized ning social networking sites have an interface that seems to encourage interaction and collaboration amongst its participants.

If as part of the project this blog is a stipulated part of the disseminating of information then my view is that with the advent of social networking the blogging approach has been superseded by a much more flexible, usable and multifunctional option - the personalized 'learning' network.

Keeping posted with ALT conference from your desk

For those of you who couldn't make it to the conference may be interested to read coverage and summaries on blogs by many people who are typing away (harder AND faster then me!).

I met a chap called Haydn Blackley from Glamorgan University who's doing a fantastic job, do check his blog out: http://haydnblackey.blogspot.com/

10 Successful blogging tips

-- Richard and I were discussing that perhaps part of our strand (#1 Leaders and Managers) we would create a recipe book for "how to" and "What not to do" in a particular web 2.0 technology. I came across this article which makes interesting reading for any budding blogger.It might also perhaps provide a template of a small part of what we may need to be outputting for our work-packages...

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The following guest post has been submitted by Trent Hamm from The Simple Dollar

Hopefully, that title got your attention a little bit, but it’s true. I launched The Simple Dollar at the very end of October 2006. I had no pre-existing blog that I could use to drive early traffic, nor did I have any personal contacts that I could use. I also had zero advertising budget. But by June 2007, I had 12,000 RSS readers and was generating enough traffic that I had to switch hosting plans twice. How did I do it? Here are a few specific techniques that really helped me build my blog’s traffic over time.

Read More...

Lecturer Fired for Blogging

Apologies for putting seemingly negative stuff about Web 2.0 stuff. I'm certainly very positive about it, and think that after the initial teething troubles, Web 2.0 will proliferate - I also think that the pathfinder project will help somewhat with the teething stages.



Story from THES regarding a recent dismissal of an academic for blogging!