We are off! My students are starting blogs

Today in class I introduced the concept of blogs to my students in my Computer in Education class (that I am teaching to a cohort of graduate students). Actually, I had the assignment posted on my course website yesterday and I asked the students to take a look at it. By this morning a couple of them had already gone ahead and started their blogs before we even got to it in class. I'm excited to see how this works out.

What I am asking students to do is create a blog that they use as a reflective journal to guide them as they research a topic for my class. Specifically I've asked them: "Begin researching and reflecting your topic. As you do so, journal about your progress and your evolving ideas on your blog. Note: your blog is not a formal paper. Let it be a free-flow journal in which you explore ideas, pose questions to yourself and to others, and share your evolving findings. You will each be reading each other's blogs, and I ask you to comment on and share your thoughts on other's blogs as appropriate. This way you will be engaged in ongoing discussions with each other about the issues that are of interest to you. If you wish, invite others outside of our class to view your blog and to make comments (you may invite others to your own blog, but please do not give out the URL of the blogs of your peers without their permission)." I'm eager to see if this helps students with the writing of their research paper -- and to hear their views on whether they think it helps them. I'm inviting them to come and take a look at my blog here. So folks in my class, feel free to share your thoughts here on how your blog is helping you, and what your thoughts are about doing it! It would be great if others could read your comments (and I truly DO want your honest thoughts!).

I found an interesting article today about blogging statistics in the USA: The State of Blogging. Lee Rainie (2005). Pew Internet and American Life Project. What is interesting is the rapid increase not so much in people who are creating blogs, but even more so those who are reading them. I know I've found ones on international news (such as Iraq) certainly are providing rich insights into these events in ways that don't make headline news. It's really powerful to read people's first hand accounts of events. Of course it's really important to keep in mind that those blogs are personal journals -- no written to be objective documentaries of factual events.