—Xenoblogging (Google) Last week when I posted on a course web page a detailed explanation of how I plan to evaluate student blogs, I coined a phrase and googled it. Nobody seems to have used it before. Now, thanks to the reach of KairosNews and a few popular bloggers who read it, several other edu-bloggers are…
The problem with comments, open forums, e-mail discussion lists and other user-generated online content is that it takes work — usually a moderator or trust system — to make sure the comments stay relevant, clean and spam-free. In fact, spammers have made old Usenet groups unreadable, have flooded most e-mail inboxes, and have brought their…
The popular online pastime known as blogging has found its way into the English classrooms at Georgia Tech. In an innovative approach, Dr. Charles Tryon and Dr. Doreen Piano have both integrated blogging into their English 1101 classes this semester for the first time. —Jeff Wei —LCC professors explore weblogging in English classes (Technique) I’m afraid…
While there were times in which some students wrote longer messages, more often than not, the posts were short, merely links to other documents, or text that was “cut and pasted” from another source. There was very little writing that could be described as reflective, dynamic, collaborative, or interactive. There was almost no exchange or…
When history books are written, bloggers’ real contribution to the 2004 election may well turn out to be in providing leagues of amateur sleuths to fact-check political controversy…. The Bush memo story has shown the Internet’s broader power of linking thousands of readers together, as much as it has demonstrated the intrinsic power of blogs…
Your online participation is evaluated mostly by your portfolio — a collection of your best blog entries, that represent your developing intellectual engagement with the literary works we have studied. —Framework for a Weblog Portfolio (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) I’m using weblogs in my American Lit course. I thought the experiment went well when I did it…
What made the early Internet so very threatening to the mainstream media was not just the new opinions being expressed, but the fact that people were spending hours of their lives doing something that didn’t involve production or consumption in the traditional market sense. Families with Internet connections were watching an average of nine hours…
Television started as a powerful community-building force. If you had a TV set, you would watch what was broadcast, discuss it among the family at home, and also with the wider context of friends, relatives, neighbours and colleagues. If you encountered someone else with a TV set, the immediate assumption would be that that you…
Whew… New Class Blogs are Up (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) The first week of classes is over, and the university modem pool, which was down for about a month, is finally back up. So I can finally return to my habit of blogging a bit after I’ve put the kids to bed. My big project of late…
Though, I must admit, blogging is not only extremely addictive–must be the subliminal messages, but also fun. Where else could you find a community of writers and readers that can be as wide or as narrow as you gear your works to be? And where else can you start controversy and discourse short of a…
After a week, Rubel — a blogging aficionado and practitioner who writes about the narrow topic of how blogs and participatory journalism are affecting the practice of public relations — says he definitely lacked the depth of knowledge of current events gained in a normal week. “I felt a little naked,” he says, having received…
Somerby’s comments would seem like blasphemy in the so-called “blogosphere,” but many online writers and observers agree that blogs, with a handful of exceptions, have had virtually no impact on the national conversation, mainstream media coverage of politics or large, orchestrated events like the parties’ quadrennial nominating conventions. —Kevin Canfield —Impact of blogs seen as…
Participants in the games may respond to written questions from reporters or participate in online chat sessions — akin to a face-to-face or telephone interview — but they may not post journals or blogs until the Games end Aug. 29. To protect lucrative broadcast contracts, athletes and other participants are also prohibited from posting any…
toronto’s western skyline seen from the cn tower’s lookout area. —Dark Skyline (Top Left Pixel) Julia, a friend of mine from my Toronto days, sent me a link to this photoblog, which features the sights of a city I remember fondly. This beautiful view from what some call a skyline-dominating tourist attraction (the CN Tower) was…
Each post is like DNA. It carries the core of your self-hood. Never commit to the web any remark, about the goat cheese you had served to you by your comely slave, or how the grape arbor was pruned on your Sabine Farm, or how you fell off your horse, or what Pippa drew on…
Campus Coming Alive Again (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) The Seton Hill student blog site, blogs.setonhill.edu/nmj, has seen activity from several intrepid souls who used their blogs to keep in touch since saying good-bye in may. It’s also interesting to see comments from an increasing number of visitors who don’t have blogs themselves, but who obviously know the…
Schmexas Hold-em Schmipitor (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) Grrr…. On blogs.setonhill.edu, over 400 comment spams for some gambling game I’ve never played and some drug I’ve never heard of. Thank goodness for MT-Blacklist. Similar:RIP Metaverse, we hardly knew yeI am curious enough about cockatoos that…AcademiaHow We Can Help Students Survive in an Age of Anxiety Today’s students have…
Vacation Blog Pause (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) I’ll be on a little family vacation until August 1. My access to the Internet will be sporadic at best. Feel free to chat among yourselves while I am away. And enjoy the postings from “buup114” and the other spam that will doubtless collect in my absence. Similar:Smalltalk through masks…
More than 30 independent Web journalists have been accredited to cover the Democratic convention, and the Republicans said Friday they’ll also credential so-called bloggers. It’s the first time bloggers will be joining the thousands of newspaper, magazine and broadcast journalists at the quadrennial presidential-nomination events. —Political conventions to welcome bloggers (CNN/AP) A few people have mentioned…
Webloggers are turning a profit, sometimes unexpectedly, reports the Chicago Tribune Online. Blogs such as TalkingPointsMemo, Wonkette, and RightWingNews are securing enough advertising to turn a profit. A firm called Blogads has been connecting advertisers with bloggers and enabling them to reach an 18 to 34-year-old demographic that is dwindling from traditional media outlets. Recent…