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November 23, 2004
Planning for snow days
I live 50 miles from Syracuse (a one-hour drive in good weather; 2 hours in bad), and bad winter driving conditions are right up there with Killer Bronchitis in the category of "Things Becky Really Whines About." And this winter, my grad class meets at 9:30 a.m., which means I have to leave the house before I can count on the roads' being cleared.
So this winter I intend to be smart and set it up so that (a) I don't have to try to drive when it isn't smart to and (b) I don't have to call off class, either. I'm a perfectly hardy driver in normal winter conditions, but not in the middle of a storm nor on icy roads. It's my intention, therefore, to set up my undergrad course on Blackboard and my grad course on a website that includes a blog. I want the grad students to have the experience of posting documents to a website and of blogging (hey, if I can do it, anybody can; and of course I have the New Convert's missionary zeal), and I think it's particularly useful to have a grad course blog so that others can drop in on conversations. I can even invite guest bloggers amongst colleagues elsewhere. We'll use the blog for a variety of things, but it's my intention that one of those uses will be for holding virtual class on rotten travel days.
And I'd really appreciate the advice of others--particularly teachers who are experienced with collaboratie class blogs, and also the students who participated in today's band-aid 607, in which students could only comment but not start new threads.
Posted by senioritis at November 23, 2004 09:29 PM
Comments
lj communities are free, easy to set up, allow multiple users to clearly identify who's speaking when, & automatically do threading; additionally, any member can start an entirely new post/topic. check out the url for the one i just started above. it's only a few weeks old, so there's not much to it, but aleshia & i were talking in class yesterday about how much easier it would have been to read/work with ideas if it had been set up that way.
i know there are other blog systems out there that allow that kind of multi-user set up, i just don't know any; that one's ready to go. oh, & she hasn't posted anything yet, but i set vanessa up on lj last night & added her to the community too. :) i've also already got strangers joining/watching it. SO COOL!
Posted by: tyra at November 24, 2004 07:08 AM
(ok, i thought it displayed, but it doesn't. check out the url you get automatically sent to if you click on the link it made my name into.)
Posted by: tyra at November 24, 2004 07:09 AM
It *is* cool. As I understand it, what you've set up is a community weblog for a specified purpose. A good model for what I'm hoping to set up for CCR 611 next semester. & also a cool blog--kudos.
Posted by: senioritis at November 24, 2004 08:03 AM
Although I was hampered by a slow connection at home (Tyra checked it out and thinks my road runner isn't being very efficient), I enjoyed the blogging process. It was nice to be able to think before responding and to carry on several conversations at once--which was managable, unlike in a classroom setting where it breaks down into chaos (which is kind of fun, too).
Anyway, I am all for blogging here, on lj or using blackboard for a similar purpose.
Posted by: vanessa at November 24, 2004 12:14 PM