A few months into my new job as a “new media journalism” teacher at Seton Hill University, a small liberal arts school in southwestern Pennsylvania, I was at a fancy on-campus dinner event, where the university president was working her way through the crowd, laying on the charm. I heard her relate a slightly off-color anecdote about a local celebrity. After the punch line, as the laughter was fading, I asked for the celebrity’s first name again.
“So, is this for your blog?” asked a colleague.
We all chuckled – but the president’s deflector screens went up. —Dennis G. Jerz —The Bane of the President’s Existence (Lore)
I understand the need for the editors to revise all the texts so they conform to a uniform style, but I dislike the conversion of “weblog” to “Web log”.
That editorial decision introduced the term “community Web-logging space” into my article.
Bleah!
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The Seton Hill faculty actually asked me to set up a private weblog for them, because enough of them disliked the JWeb forums. That's possibly one reason why more students aren't familiar with the private forums. Karissa, since you're an experienced and committed blogger, I'd welcome your take on the JWeb forums, should you ever get the chance to use them in a class.
If you'd like to know the truth, I don't think that many students really know -how- to go about using JWEB to their advantage, as a "private" blog conversation tool. Speaking from my own experiences, the orientation that my freshman class had been given on JWEB went no further than the syllabus and course management tools, and there hasn't been the need to delve deeper into the thing, really. I suppose I'll have to do some exploring, now that you mention it--I'm sure it has potential.
That's a very good point, Linda. While I know many faculty members use the forum discussion feature of JWeb (our course management system), I haven't heard a single student say that they prefer JWeb to the blogs. It would be possible to use a password to protect the course blog from the outside world, but I have some students in multiple classes, and in journalism or e-media classes, I can't really teach about blogging unless the students have a real, public blog. Thus, for technological reasons, I'm limited in what I can do.
So far it seems to me that the positives far outweigh the negatives. You really threw yourself into the blogging, which suggests that you recognized early on how beneficial it was for your thought processes. I suppose if an old friend found me through one of my less-remarkable blog entries, I'd quickly refer them to some of my better stuff!
Thanks for your comments Linda, and I hope to see you again in other classes.
As an adult student,I still have mixed feelings about forced academic blogging. Posting academic work in a public forum does indeed alter the way one approaches an assignment. While I do feel being held accountable encourages more thoughtful writing, as an adult, I am not always comfortable having my schoolwork on display for anyone to stumble on. In some ways it violates the safety of the classroom. A friend that I used to work with 20 years ago found me through google recently and guess what the first thing that came up with was! One of my most uninspired blog entries. I was mortified that he read it. I love the discussion that goes on, but sometimes I really wish it didn't go farther than the Seton Hill community.
Good point, Dr. A. I guess I never really thought about it that way before... Although, I am still rather critical of what I actually post just because it is a reflection on me as the blog's owner!
Congratulations on publishing this essay in Lore! Really good stuff. The "web-logging" term is no big deal. I liked the quotation "there is educational value in asking students to be accountable for the writing they post." This is why I am also an advocate of using the internet (not just blogging) for sharing student work. It makes them accountable for what they say the way a published writer would be -- and in the process evades the one-to-one assumption of a "student writing for the teacher" mindset.
It's gotta be hard being a university president. A lot of people have a barely-formed opinion of you, based on antedotal evidence their friend told them, and now they're convinced you're driving *their* great university into the ground.
On the other hand, I'm sure their salary makes up for it. ;-)