Professors bring blogging to the classroom

By Laura Barnes
J-School Web reporter

photo by Neel Deshpande

Nadia White initiates a discussion from a post made by Bill Oram on the internship class blog.

Blogs have become a trend in the classroom, and the School of Journalism is no exception.  Professor- and student-created blogs host a semester of class work, a string of conversations on the state of the media and ethics, and links to news and grammar sites. 

Professor Clem Work has used blogs in several capacities in and out of the classroom. Work maintains an active blog for the “preparing for internship” class along with professor Nadia White. Work also created the new "What’s the Future?" blog, where students can contribute to a conversation about coming changes in the journalism curriculum.

For the internship class, students must create a personal blog where they can post resumes and other materials.

“The main purpose is to get them used to using a Web site and get their information up on the Web for perspective employers to look at,” Work said.

White uses a blog for Current Events and Public Affairs Reporting classes. She also helps maintain the "What’s the Future?" blog.

“The primary benefit is accessibility,” White said. “Students can access information from the syllabus to readings, to changes in the schedule from any place that has Internet access.” 

Work agrees with White and believes blogs serve three purposes in a classroom. 

• Blogs act as a reference for class materials.   
• Blogs give students a place to publicize their work.
• Blogs spur discussion among students.

Work sees blogs in the future serving as rallying points.

“I think right now, blogs are at their finest when they are used to mobilize action rather than journalism,” Work said.

Despite their versatility, Work doesn’t believe that blogging poses a threat to journalism.
“I don’t think it has an advantage over newspapers or news sites or legacy media,” Work said.

White also believes blogs have limitations. She does not think they are the best option for displaying final work or resumes because of formatting and presentation issues. Instead she prefers a traditional Web site, and also says educational privacy must be addressed.

“It raises a lot of questions about student privacy, about how public they want their education to be,” White said.

To offer students a degree of anonymity for their work, White also uses a resource called Blackboard where students can post work-in-progress stories and PowerPoint presentations. 

Despite the privacy concerns, White believes that the blogs have served a purpose, especially the internship blog.

“It’s really been a collaboration between the professors and the students,” White said.

“[There is] information on more than 100 internships — what they are, how to apply.”

For the spring semester, White is excited about her upcoming sports writing class, which will feature a blog where students can respond daily to sports news and events.

“My hope is that the blog will allow class discussion to be broader and deeper and timeless,” she said.

White believes that blogs will continue to be important in the classroom, and will continue using them in conjunction with Blackboard.

“It’s part of a grand experiment of teaching as technology evolves,” White said.

Print journalism professor Dennis Swibold also thinks blogs serve several purposes. He has created multiple blogs for classes and said each one was unique. Some sites have featured information about class or links to useful Web sites; others are used for conversations.

This semester, Swibold’s most active blog was the Missoula's Choice 2007 site he maintained with White for their public affairs classes to cover the city elections. The blog included student-written candidate and ballot issue profiles, election night stories, and post-election stories.

“It was live [election night],” Swibold said. “Nadia and I sat in here, and when people sent their stories in we edited them and posted them.”

Student participation is key to a blog’s success, Swibold said.

“If you really want to get students interested, you have to get them interested in what they contribute,” he said.

Professor Denise Dowling of the Radio-TV Department also uses a blog for her senior seminar class with Work, an interactive Web site featuring a variety of information for and from students.

Dowling views the blog as a supplement to class; she posts links, videos and bios about future guests, and uses the blog to stimulate conversation among students.  ß

“I especially target ethical issues and current trends in the media,” Dowling said, another thing she holds in common with Work and Swibold.

Participation is very active, she said.

“It forces them to think about the career they're embarking on and gives them an idea of the current landscape in the profession,” Dowling said. “It allows them to converse with each other in a forum that otherwise wouldn't exist.”

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