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More on Maricopa Bloggers

This slipped off my "to-do" list, and fell into the crevice behind my desk ;-) Back in February, I mentioned our Online Learning Group meeting where we had some local demos of how some of our faculty are starting to use weblogs. Well, I forgot to come back and post the notes from that meeting, but here ya go.

The most ambitious roll-out was Anthropology instructor Rick Effland (Mesa Community College) who was creating assignments for his students in "Buried Cities / Lost Tribes" (probably the most cleverly named course in our system!) where they were to write reflections on their class learnings, and student blogs were linked as co-horts using RSS feeds from other student bloggers. I am sure Rick and his students would get a kick out of some visitors dropping comments in ;-) hint hint hint

Beyond Rick and the others who shared their experience at this meeting, a few more blog-flowers are popping up in the Arizona sunshine:

Robert Klassen (Mesa Community College) has a blog resource for Physical Education.

Tom Foster (Chandler-Gilbert Community College) created a blog for his college's Teaching and Learning Center as well as a more personal, "Who" flavored blog.

Donna Gaudet and Jim Tipton (Mesa Community College) are assembling faculty resources for the Mesa Center for Teaching and Learning blog.

Likely my favorite example, Robert Burget, an adjunct faculty in the Chandler-Gilbert Art department, is Testing the Waters on having his photography students use Photoblogs. Robert is writing his experiences in the above linked MovableType blog, but is also having his students post their photos in a Buzznet gallery affectionately named (and described) Side Show. Robert will be co-presenting some of this at the April Teaching in the Community Colleges Online Conference.

There are likely more out there, just hard to know them all. I am encouraged that this is quietly spreading among faculty, rather than landing on them like the 12-ton Course Management anvils.