Another Blogging Professor's Experience

"Professor Camicao" from ? has some additional insights regarding blogging at the university level. Here is some of what P.C. has to say:

"In my third course blog, however, I am doing something more ambitious. My students (there are about 15) are expected to journal on their own blogs about course material. Once they set up their blogs in blogger (it went more smoothly than I expected), I got their adresses and made a course blogroll. I require the students to read each other's blogs and comment. I comment each week on their blog entries as well.

I'm not entirely sure how the students feel about this. I plan on surveying them later, once they are through with the experience, but judging from the vibe in the class, and their blogs, it seems to be going well. No overt grouchiness and foot dragging. Some have begun to take "ownership" of their blogs by changing templates and uploading pertinent pictures. On my end, I find that this assignment has enabled me to communicate alot more with my students outside of class through my comments on their blogs. And I like the idea that students can read my comments on other student blogs; my dialogue with an individual student is thus multi-directional. Sometimes I cross-reference my comments by providing active links in a comment to other student blogs on the same subject.

I'm not sure that all or even most students are fully aware of the benefits of this interactivity, of the ways in which this kind of dialoguing can help them with other, non-virtual assignments. But it's still early, and I am still getting them used to the capabilities of this technology and assignment category. It will be interesting to see what happens 5 weeks down the road when I start surveying them on their feelings about blogging."

All the post can be found here as well as several other links to "course bloggers". Check it out!