About this Blog

I recently read a piece of scholarship about "backchannel" communication and its potential ties to education.  It was about the possibility of tying things like Facebook, Twitter, blogging, Youtube, etc, and bringing them into the process of learning.  This is an idea that some instructors aren't comfortable with.  But, especially here at UWM, faculty are finding innovative ways to use social media as an educational tool.  Some instructors use "Second Life," a virtual 3-D world, as a "virtual" classroom.  There is even a virtual UWM campus there now, with meeting spaces that classes meet in online regularly (I'm not quite that cool).

I've been trying to find ways to use blogging as a part of my 102 classes for three semesters now.  This is my third attempt-- and inspired by this article, I am employing a strategy that is completely new.  Instead of giving you specific writing assignments for your blogs, I am having you all write together in a single, collaborative blog.  And moreover, I am not telling you what to write.  I am only grading this based on your degree of participation.  You will be required to write here-- but what you write, and how you use this space, I am going to leave entirely up to you. 

It seems like it might be a good space for you all to communicate with each other, to work out interesting ideas for your research, to write in response to each other, or even to bring in outside interests or content that might be fun for others, or which could be linked to your ongoing research.  You can embed images, youtube videos, and anything you want.  But be aware, you are also legally responsible for what you write here in this public and shared space, and you need to appropriately cite, link, and give credit for any text, art work, images, or video that may be copyrighted. 

I am excited to see what happens here, and I look forward to seeing what kind of creativity you might bring to what you share here.  


And naturally, I will be asking all of you to "bring this back into the classroom" on a regular basis, so that we can make use of what goes on in this space as a part of our learning curve.

-Adam