Welcome...

I have tried to be systematic about catching up after being ill, but have struggled getting back into the rhythm of teaching. My early intent for this course was to leave the final weeks for project development and the exchange of experiences in a seminar tradition.  As events have dictated I am a couple of weeks behind where I intended to be, but still want to direct us into this format.  I have been working to learn the techniques and applications of blogging and will use the weblog as a means to demonstrate one form of interactive learning and to give us another delivery form outside the threaded discussions.

As stated, this seminar courses was intended primarily for advanced students to work on individual projects within the topic area and then to share with and teach their colleagues. The weblog appears the most usable tool available, and I thought I could actually build and manage one of those as a sharing vehicle for the course. So, here we are. The blogspot template that I’ve used is fairly simple, so several ideas I had don’t fit, but time was an issue anyway. This blog is called a ‘team blog,’ and is by invitation only, so our sharing is still private and after the course I’ll delete the blog. Everyone can post project stories, updates, etc., and edit them. Everyone can comment on other posts.

In an attempt to test the blog's limits, learn its strengths, and provide examples as a means to invite discussion and help to guide the course, I have also assigned myself a course project! I have found an interactive tool that I think can be used in many ways--although I'm having some trouble with it!  I'll share that under another posting.  The blog itself is also a project for me in a way.  I find it can be very interactive and a good tool for classroom use also.

The remaining class requirements are all connected to your project: developing on it, reporting on it, and completing it.  In this blog you should introduce what your project is about and then follow up with some reports on your progress.  Of course you will need to turn your project in, and that will most easily be done in the course web site.  The blog has places for making comments and you should try to provide feedback to your colleagues as you read the blog postings.

If you are not familiar with blogs and blogging, here's a couple of links that might be of interest:
Timeline of blogging from New York magazine.
Wikipedia's history of blogging.