Almost Live from EduWeb 2006: To Blog or Not To Blog in Higher Education

Yesterday at EduWeb in Baltimore, Shane Colvin attended the presentation given by Nina Sossen, another of our guest bloggers and the Web Communications Director at the University of Massachusetts Amherst: “To Blog or Not to blog.”

Nina Sossen began her presentation by describing what a blog is and how it came about.

What, when and where?

-web+log = weblog= blog
-arose in the late 1990’s
-blogging software in 2004-5 (blogger, movable type, wordpress) made it easier for people to create blogs and gave blogs a consistent look
-popular topics in blogs
personal diaries
news and politics
culture
sports
hobbies
-over 50 million blogs today, 75000 new blogs a day, 1,2 million blogs post daily

What about blogs in higher education?

Sossen, points out that there is still much scepticism of blogs is higher education . Some schools like to simply jump in and start using them, while others are still reluctant to do so. Many school are fearful of blogs because they believe negative things would be said about their institution. The same sceptics are worried that student bloggers would wrote about things that are not related to the school. Moreover, they might be writing material that doesn’t have substance, going on and on about nothing at all. Many schools also still think it’s a passing fad and a big waste of money.

On the other hand, many schools are going all the way with blogging, Sossen gave the following examples:
Biola University
RPI

Blogs at UMass Amherst

Sossen went on to present the blogs they were using at UMass Amherst:

Senior Bloggers

– They were graduating seniors blogging about their last 6 weeks at Umass
– Targeted at prospective students
– Recruited 40 graduating seniors from a range of majors
– Ten accepted, eight carried through with it- almost all were journalism majors
– Reviewed and edited only if they spelled the university’s name wrong or exceeded the allotted length
– No compensation
– Used blogger, customized to their look

Juniper Summer Writing Institute

– ”Juniper Notes”
– Summer institute held on campus with writers from high school studying with UMass faculty and guest authors
– Invited all 72 participants to blog, 20 accepted, 17 followed through, including some faculty

Dinner services blog

Blog about food and service issues at the university, written by their enthusiastic food director- parents and student loved it.

Lesssons learned

– Content is king
– The best writers are the best bloggers
– Make it easy and identifiable- use a blogging programs
– Promotion is essential- have to say what the blog is about- don’t focus on the medium, but more on what they are going to get out of it.
РBlogs must be short- students must be paid for their work and hey, it looks good on their r̩sum̩

Next steps

– Beyond the “Six carefully selected students narrate their life story” blogs.
– What’s the essence of a blog?
– Is it authentic when the administration censors it, and the students are paid to write it?
– Be creative, do something that makes you stand out, because everyone is going to have student blogs
– Things will change
– Don’t dump a bunch of money into it