As my students are doing this semester, I will be using this space to explore blogging as a method of in-depth issue exploration, analysis, and data synthesis.  I’m scared to go public with my thoughts and ideas–but since I’m asking my students to go public–!! My exploration seeks to uncover some significant teaching affordances related to blogging, particularly as a method for research, remembrance, reflection, and renewal.  My colleague, Dr. Stacia Dunn Campbell, suggested I explore how blogs provide a place of transferability and sustainability, and I agree with her that blogs do allow for those affordances, so they, too, will be part of my exploratory journey.

Students will use their blogs as sites of creation and reflection.  Not only will they analyze their research and publish their thoughts about course reading assignments, they will also undertake a thoughtful exploration of issues that interest them.  They will seek other bloggers and micro-bloggers who are writing about specific issues and learn how to join a community of experts and scholars seeking to shed light on the important problems of our day.

This is our beginning . . .