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July 30, 2006
Is a course blog worth it?
Short answer: yes, an online database repository of questions and answers is worthwhile for the students. There are four basic flavors, in personal order of preference: OpenACS for the school, a forum for the class, a blog for the course, and, finally, Blackboard (which is like walking on nails, IMHO).
Whatever you decide to do, I'm strongly in favor of telling people in advance that their comments will be subject to moderation and placing heavy weight in your moderation decisions on whether commentors use their real names. Here's one of the best threads on the internet about comment moderation (full disclosure: I participate in aforementioned forum). I also recommend a soft, warm-to-neutral, near-white color palette and minimal use of lines in the design. Swaths of very mild color are better.
Long answer: Is a blog 'worth it'? For the students it would be better than Blackboard (the forum in Blackboard is the most horrid learning interface I have ever seen). A post-per-lecture is probably the best organization for a blog. If all the profs agreed on a forum, that would be even better for the students. The way most schools keep the students distributed among several different, exculsive feedback systems (their own little internet fiefdoms) is . . . less than ideal. Blog or forum, you could link to the audio and the slides in the post (blog) or first post of each thread (forum) and monitor comments by e-mail. Long answer: I think the OpenACS system is the best learning community system going, but it still requires a bright programmer. To the point, I taught myself photography and analytic design and web design on photo.net and Ask ET well enough to get paid, get repeat customers, and turn away work. I tried to get an OpenACS community for Tulane Med set up last year through Philip Greenspun's course at MIT (he developed ACS in the 90s, starting with Hurst Publishing's intranet and then photo.net), and he pushed his students to it take on after the storm (h), but they balked. Maybe I'll try again. The social bookmark site del.icio.us is also based on some ACS modules.
Posted by Niels Olson at July 30, 2006 11:39 AM
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