The Potential of Blogs for Higher Degree Supervision.

This article discusses the potential of the use of blog technology in supporting research students at the university, and encourages its wider use. Individual blogs open only to student and supervisors can focus and structure dialogue and discussion, helping students to develop their argument and ‘voice’. The general blog “Learn, Live, Thrive” models the development of a reflexive research diary so that students can develop their own. It also encourages students to begin the process of theorization by sharing reading and ideas, and modelling theory. By being open and available to all students, general blogs add to the breadth, depth, effectiveness and efficiency of the supervision process, informing tutorials on the student’s particular topic

Elearning Technologies

When blogging tools first arrived in 1998, people asked “What’s a blog?” The word “blog” is a contraction of “Web log” and is used both as a noun as well as a verb. To blog is to write content to a blog. By design, blogs are best suited for the spontaneous thoughts and observations of an individual or team. They are not designed to facilitate rapid-fire back-and-forth discussion on a particular issue. Blogging tools are available as free or moderately priced services and as products you purchase and install on your own server. You may have noticed recently that many of websites now contain little graphical buttons with the word XML on them. When you click on the button, all you see is some jumbled text and computer code [ed: unless you have a newer web browser or an aggregator]. What's this all about? It's an RSS feed, and it's changing the way people access the Internet.Weblog, RSS, e-learning, RSS, blogging tools

JISC Preservation of Web Resources (PoWR) Handbook

Handbook of Web Preservation produced by the JISC-PoWR project which ran from April to November 2008. The handbook specifically addresses digital preservation issues that are relevant to the UK HE/FE web management community”. The project was undertaken jointly by UKOLN at the University of Bath and ULCC Digital Archives department

An Evaluation of Blogging as an Educational Tool for Interprofessional Education as Part of University Experiential Learning

Since the inception of the Internet, much of our society’s communication has become paperless and instantaneous. The speed at which information can be disseminated has not only changed the way in which we communicate with each other but it has also increased the collaboration between professions, particularly the health sciences. As society shifts to a more virtual environment, it is imperative to assess these online tools to determine whether they elevate our research, educational methods and/or work environment. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether blogging can be used as an educational tool for interprofessional education in a university setting around experiential learning. In this study, the experiential learning activity was a seven day Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Challenge where participants were challenged to live off of $4.20 per day for seven days. Participation was available to all students and faculty at Winthrop University and was completely voluntary. The blog was one component of the challenge that aimed to create an informal, conversational forum for the participants of the SNAP Challenge to interact and potentially engage in Interprofessional Education (IPE) without any formal intervention. Results of this study showed that the blog was a valuable tool for promoting reflection amongst participants as well as interaction between participants. There was little evidence to support the blog contributing to interprofessional education due to a lack of participation by a variety of majors in the current study and should be evaluated in future research efforts. Due to the dearth research regarding the use of blogging as an educational tool, studies should examine blogging as a viable online teaching tool in higher education

White Bread Girl: Real Life Chronicles of a Twenty-Something

Hi! Did you pick up this project book, see the title and immediately wonder, What is a White Bread Girl anyway? Good question. I like you. There are so many books aimed at the 20something category claiming to represent my generation and miserably failing. Maybe I fall into a 20something minority category but I don’t enjoy eating pizza at 2am like Lena Dunham in her book Not That kind of Girl, I don’t like eating nothing and drinking everything like The Betches do in their book Nice is Just a Place in France and I’m not a fan of constantly dieting like Mindy Kaling says she is in Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me. White Bread Girl is my own personal solution to this underrepresentation. Instead of waiting for my role models; Emma Watson, Taylor Swift and Blake Lively to gift their 20something autobiographies to the world, I decided to write my own. White Bread Girl is a blog chronicling my experience of being a 20something because I strongly believe that as humans we share a hunger for connection with others. We crave stories about other humans because in stories we are able to uncover little pieces and lessons that can be understood in our own lives. This is primarily a writing capstone but as a dual magazine/ writing major I couldn’t resist slipping in a little White Bread Girl social media and branding. In addition to the blog I have created a Twitter and an Instagram. 20somethings do so much more than just party and hookup. I started White Bread Girl to document my experience and offer other non-stereotypical 20something girls, an alternative persona for our generation

Blogs : open-source diaries

Weblogs, or blogs, are Web sites maintained by one person or a few select people, are usually about one distinct subject, are constantly updated, and attract repeat visitors. This form has become a popular means of self-expression because it empowers both the writer and the audience. Blogs empower writers by providing them with an easy way to self-publish their points-of-view to a wide audience. Blogs empower the audience when the writer either provides informative hyperlinks and references that the audience can use to verify the writer\u27s claims or allows the audience to append their own text to the blog that could refute the writer\u27s claims. When the blogger provides links to her sources and encourages her readers to challenge her arguments in much the same way as academic or scientific authors do, her blog feels more authentic. To understand how blogs empower people, a useful comparison can be made between blogs and traditional autobiographical writing, as well as the collaborative environment of the open source movement

Up from the Ground: Blogging the Farm and Farming the Blog

Up from the Ground: Blogging the Farm and Farming the Blog was written in the form of blog posts from May 2009 until March 2010. The blog chronicled successes and failures in the transition from city life to organic agriculture, as well as explored the nature of the blog form. The thesis reads in reverse chronological order, as a blog would. It was and remains an experiment in form, voice and technique

Technologically-Mediated Writing In The First Year Writing Classroom: Twitter And Immediate Writing

A series of assignments in First Year Writing classes at Saginaw Valley State University utilizes social media to address issues of kairos in student writing experiences. The term immediate writing is applied to these writing activities which require students to produce polished writing in a specific moment, a different objective than commonly-used impromptu or freewriting. Included are considerations of technologically-mediated writing and the artifacts used to generate it

The corporate blog as an emerging genre of computer-mediated communication: features, constraints, discourse situation

Digital technology is increasingly impacting how we keep informed, how we communicate professionally and privately, and how we initiate and maintain relationships with others. The function and meaning of new forms of computer-mediated communication (CMC) is not always clear to users on the onset and must be negotiated by communities, institutions and individuals alike. Are chatrooms and virtual environments suitable for business communication? Is email increasingly a channel for work-related, formal communication and thus "for old people", as especially young Internet users flock to Social Networking Sites (SNSs)? Cornelius Puschmann examines the linguistic and rhetorical properties of the weblog, another relatively young genre of CMC, to determine its function in private and professional (business) communication. He approaches the question of what functions blogs realize for authors and readers and argues that corporate blogs, which, like blogs by private individuals, are a highly diverse in terms of their form, function and intended audience, essentially mimic key characteristics of private blogs in order to appear open, non-persuasive and personal, all essential qualities for companies that wish to make a positive impression on their constituents.Digital technology is increasingly impacting how we keep informed, how we communicate professionally and privately, and how we initiate and maintain relationships with others. The function and meaning of new forms of computer-mediated communication (CMC) is not always clear to users on the onset and must be negotiated by communities, institutions and individuals alike. Are chatrooms and virtual environments suitable for business communication? Is email increasingly a channel for work-related, formal communication and thus "for old people", as especially young Internet users flock to Social Networking Sites (SNSs)? Cornelius Puschmann examines the linguistic and rhetorical properties of the weblog, another relatively young genre of CMC, to determine its function in private and professional (business) communication. He approaches the question of what functions blogs realize for authors and readers and argues that corporate blogs, which, like blogs by private individuals, are a highly diverse in terms of their form, function and intended audience, essentially mimic key characteristics of private blogs in order to appear open, non-persuasive and personal, all essential qualities for companies that wish to make a positive impression on their constituents