class-blogging revisited

Most of my thoughts around blogging at Penn State have centered around the idea of blog as learning portfolio. You can find a post of mine from last August in which I conclude by wondering if the notion of class-blogging is dead to me.

Then there is Chris Long's post about his experience using a blog as part of course he is teaching this semester which pulls me back into considering the class-blog view. He is going the class blog route, rather than having students each keep their own blog. This approach seems to lead to discussion and community in a way a collection of separate students blogs don't. And while I have focused on the power of student ownership of their content in blogging, I have neglected the idea of shared ownership from a group blog. Dr. Long calls this class blog, "Our Document".

Dr. Long says talks of the shared blog and weekly podcasts as "a common endeavor more than as a unidirectional process in which knowledge is transfered from teacher to student." I view this as obviously a credit to Dr. Long's capacity to create an educational experience and not so much a by-product of a technology, but we must make sure the technology is able to support this kind of teaching and learning in the best ways possible.

It does make me start thinking more of how we can foster community. I always viewed the community element of blogging (community that transcends classroom - lifelong learning community) as one of its main benefits. Dr. Long has helped me realize I need to think more about how the blogs@psu can be arranged to promote this kind of community.