I’m not sure that I’ve ever mentioned it here, although I know I covered the topic in my small part at the writers conference presentation, but it occurred to me tonight that I am indeed happy with the use of a weblog as an academic portfolio.
While I started with a New Media category here at Spinning when I took that class last semester, for the Creative Writing course I’m currently in, I learned that it would be easier to open a new weblog for the course and set up the categories as outlined in the syllabus. Learning to Spin is the result of that endeavor, and I find it very easy to maneuver and do the work required within the blog. Weblogs are the perfect format for organizing the notes, essays or papers written, as well as separating out outlines or thoughts relative to the course and linking to the material used for resources. Drafts are easily retained to lead to a final presentation–I use links to files in Word–and comments and discussion can be helpful for student or instructor input.
Learning to Spin has worked out wonderfully for this particular course, and I’m wondering if it would be as manipulatable and organized for other courses as well. Obviously, if I could take the laptop into class and take notes directly into the blog, it would save much mere transcription time, and I could well see a classroom setup where computers are right there at each desk. The instructor in our Western Civ class very often writes on the blackboard–as does the Creative Writing instructor. How much easier and more accurate it would be if he wrote directly into the program to which all students were connected, and it would then be saved to that file. Movies and clips are often presented in class; these too could be saved. Referrring back to the notes and lessons would be a simple matter of going back through the archives and links to locate whatever is needed to prepare a paper for instance. While the adaptability could be subject to abuse, it would also allow an absent student to possibly attend class online by logging on during the classroom period.
I don’t relish a classroom where students are focused on a monitor and not interacting, but I do see how a combination of teaching methods could in fact be more interesting and probably more of what is being presented to the students by the instructor would be learned because the interaction with the computer program during the session would be imperative, as well as the material being available on a permanent basis for later reference.
Ah, it’s a brave new world out there.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology