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December 09, 2004
Course Expectations: Blogging
Although there will be additional expectations in this course, the major portion of your course grade will be determined by the blogging you do in the course. We will be discussing blogs during the first few weeks of the course, but there are a few considerations that I want to raise before class starts.
What are the baseline requirements?
As I understand it, blogging is a combination of reading and writing. So while certain of my expectations deal with producing entries or posts, there are a couple of additional requirements intended to get you reading as well. Each week, I expect you to:
- post 3-4 entries to your individual weblog
- post at least 1 entry to this site, the course weblog (which may be cross-posted to your own weblog)
- make 2-3 comments on your classmates' entries, either here or on their weblogs
- contribute 2 sites per week to a collaborative del.icio.us account
I don't expect to have to spend the semester with a spreadsheet, tallying each of these requirements. In other words, if you are engaging with this class as you should, you should have no trouble meeting and exceeding these expectations. We will spend the first class meeting going over each of these requirements.
How do I set up a weblog?
Some of you already maintain weblogs, but for those who don't, I will create weblogs in Movable Type for you and host them in my own server account. If you wish to try out other blogging platforms, such as Livejournal, Blogger, or the new MS Spaces, you are welcome to do so, but you may have to spend some time outside of class familiarizing yourself with them. I will provide some technical support during class for the MT blogs, but I hope to be able to keep it to a minimum.
Also, each of you will have a username and password that gives you access to this site.
Usernames?
This is actually pretty important. Before our class begins, you have to decide whether or not you'll be blogging this semester under your real name or assuming an alias. Weblogs are public, and the work you do in this class will be accessible to anyone who might take an interest, including the people whose work we'll be discussing. Even if you ultimately decide to blog under your own name, I urge you to consider blogging pseudonymously, at least to begin with. Your "secret identity" won't be a mystery to anyone in the class (or anyone who knows you), but it will provide you with something of a safety net as you grow accustomed to writing publicly about the class materials.
What about etiquette?
Even if you elect to blog under an alias, I recommend that you take the following guidelines to heart:
- If you wouldn't sign your real name to it, think twice about posting it. There are some legitimate reasons for blogging pseudonymously, and you'll find that those who do so are as careful about the credibility of their aliases as those of us who blog under our "real" names are about our own reputations. An alias is not a license to behave badly.
- Write as though the people you're writing about will be reading it. Even if you disagree with someone, do it constructively and respectfully.
- Set some clear boundaries. Personally, I don't blog about my colleagues, classes, or students in much detail, unless it's something that I wouldn't mind them reading. They'll find it eventually, especially if I start gossiping or complaining.
Bottom line here is that you should always overestimate your potential audience, and write about others in a way that you yourself would want to be written about.
Do I have to blog about the class all the time?!
No. Your posts to the class blog should be relevant to the week's topic and readings, but otherwise, your individual weblog is your own space, to fill as you see fit. You can blog about this class there if you choose (especially if you cross-post your weekly entry), but the other entries are entirely up to you. If you want to use it as a space for keeping notes in your other courses, feel free. If you want to reflect on politics, pop culture, or hobbies, feel free. The point of maintaining an individual weblog for this course is that it will give you experience with the kind of writing and (post) literacies we'll be exploring and discussing in class.
Do I have to stick with the default design?
Nope. But we won't be spending a great deal of time in class on issues of HTML or CSS. I can point you to a couple of helpful sites and offer a quick overview of some of the key steps in the process, but if you'd like to customize your site, you'll need to spend some time outside of class with it, either individually or collaboratively.
What are my obligations to my classmates?
Part of my motivation in keeping weekly readings shorter is that you'll have the time to read each others' weblogs as well as the course weblog, and I would urge you not to slack on that portion of the course. I will show you during our first meeting how to use an aggregator to manage your reading load, but after that, it's up to you. Nothing will please me more in class discussion than to hear you citing each others' writing and building on it. Ideally, this site and your own blogs will form an ongoing conversational network, with the value distributed across every node.
Is there anything I'm not telling you, any unspoken assumptions?
Yes, I do have one more thing, an assumption that I carry into every technologically-inflected course I teach. I expect you to be frank and unapologetic about your level of tech expertise, and I expect you to push yourself in that regard during this course. I will help as best as I can, but you are responsible for being able to say at the end of the semester that you know more about this stuff than you did when you started. Don't be afraid to try something new or different, and don't be afraid to ask for help when you get stuck.
[Update: We'll be talking about this in more detail during Week 3, but for those of you who are wondering how this emphasis on blogging relates to your course grade, I recommend this post from Adrian Miles, which speculates briefly on the relationship between assessment and innovation...]
Posted by cgbrooke at December 9, 2004 12:44 AM