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| 10-28-2003 | Previous edition: 10-27-2003 |
        
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Printer-friendly version Instructors increase Weblog use as aidsBy Julie GlaserAssistant Features Editor Popular tools for self-expression and information exchange in the cyber world — Weblogs, or blogs, as they are called for short — have become an increasingly popular fixture on the Internet since the late '90s and now several Purdue professors are bringing them into the classroom. According to an upcoming book tentatively titled "The New Technologies Handbook," which is co-authored by David Blakesley, associate professor of English, the definition of a blog is an online journal or commentary usually written by an individual or a small group of people. Blakesley, the director of Purdue's professional writing program, learned about blogs from a colleague, researched them and began using them in his classroom last summer. "One of the goals is to teach students in professional writing and other students to communicate with the new technologies in the work world and socially," Blakesley said. "I knew a lot of people were using blogs, and I wanted to encourage dialogue and discussion and keep students on the cutting edge." In Blakesley's courses, students use their class blog to respond to readings and to keep in touch with teammates when working on a collaborative project. Samantha Blackmon, assistant professor of English, uses blogs in her classroom as well. She began using the technology in her graduate classes in the fall of 2001. "I saw it as an opportunity to actively share teaching journals between class members and provide the opportunity to open up ideas about pedagogy and theory to a global scholarly community," she said. However, class blogs do not replace journals, in-class discussions or e-mail in Blackmon's classes, but rather supplement all of those things. "Journals are still used for ideas that are too personal or sensitive to discuss in a forum as public as the Internet," she said. "In-class discussions are still the cornerstone of classroom activity, and e-mail is still used to discuss issues that are not directly related to course content, or correspondences that are too personal for public discussion either in class or on the Internet." Chris Meador, graduate student and blogger, said he thinks blogs in the classroom are a good thing. "If it helps inspire discussion and furthers education, more power to them," he said. Meador was introduced to blogging by a conversation with a friend who uses the popular blogging software LiveJournal. Meador uses his blog to keep in touch with friends from home, though he does watch a couple of blogging communities. Meador is far from alone when it comes to starting a personal blog on blog-hosting services, but whether they are a trend or will be around for a while is something that is still unknown. Perseus Development, a research firm and software-maker for surveys, recently surveyed 3,634 blogs on eight leading blog-hosting services. What it found was that of the 4.12 million blogs on the Internet, 66 percent of surveyed blogs have not been updated in two months, representing 2.72 million blogs that have been either permanently or temporarily abandoned and 1.09 million blogs that were just one-day ventures. Meador said he thinks the trendiness surrounding the blogging culture — polls flashing animations, icons, chain letters, etc. — is a fad, but the medium itself is not. "I think the Weblog format is a very fundamental concept in Web publishing and Internet culture. It is the result of the evolution of chat rooms, personal Web sites, news sites, e-zines and message boards, not merely a passing fad. My feeling is that the community Weblog is becoming one of the fundamental metaphors of online publishing." Printer-friendly version |
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