I feel like I've been remiss in not getting to blogging about the sessions I attended at 4C's. For instance, Dennis Jerz's “Forced Blogging: Students’ Emotional Investment
in Their Academic Weblogs” (25 March). Dennis gave us some great views of student investment in their blog when considered in light of voluntary or forced (assigned) blogging. One of the students at Seton Hill, Anthony, had this to say during a student online discussion about forced blogging:

As a student solely judging my amount of work to be expected in a 3 credit class, then I'd say forget it, no way. However, I'm getting quite a different vibe from blogging all together. Honestly, I rarely visit Dr. Jerz's blog. But, I do feel that his involvment with our blogs shows a degree of commitment to us as students. Not as college students, but as students. The forum that blogging allows us to take part in is the new town square. Percieving blogs as the new town square pushes me to seeing it as something that Socrates and Plato would frequent. And, it is this perception that encourages involvement beyond requirement and external motivation.

Terra Williams and I just completed a final draft submission for Into the Blogosphere (hopefully, they will like it). Excerpt follows:

However, to use blogs merely as a tool for private journaling is to privilege our understanding of journals as private writing spaces without considering the benefits of weblogs as public writing. Whether as researchers investigating a topic, pundits championing a cause, or expressivist writers exploring their feelings about themselves and others, students can also easily share a journal, not just with a teacher, another class member, or the entire class, but potentially with any interested reader on the Internet.

And,

In looking through Barber and Grigar's New Worlds, New Words: Exploring Pathways for Writing about and in Electronic Environments (2001), I discovered that Nick Carbone, "Diving into the Text: Rediscovering the Myths of Our Books," deserves significant note for his advocation of public web journals in composition. Carbone never mentions blogging and is speaking about journals along the lines of academic journal publications reconceived for the web and the classroom. But Carbone was writing this before blogging became mainstream and does caution that "it is also important that these journals do not become mere imitators of print journals. . . . a Web journal should also take advantage of the unique way the web can create, shape, share, and store writing" (240).

These ten tips from editor and publisher Pat Holt would be a good online resource for any class that involves writing (not just the composition classes that I teach). For example, as Terra pointed out to me while we were collaborating on an article on the importance of weblogs as public writing spaces, my "repeat" or "crutch word" in our text was "yet" :)

Fellow Kairosnews editor and computers and writing researcher Matt Barton has been integrating technology into his courses for a while, doing some great work with using both wikis and phpBB in his teaching. If I weren't so busy using weblogs, I'd be following in his footsteps investigating their pedagogical value, too :)

Well now for the announcement. Matt has taken the portal plunge. Instead of a static front page in front of the class wiki and discussion forums, Matt has placed phpBB EZ Portal on the front of his site, MattBarton.net, turning it into a versatile content management system with a blog for Matt on the front page. Looks great from here, Matt! Now, just get us an RSS feed so we can follow along with your posts.

Renata Phelps' Developing Online From Simplicity toward Complexity: Going with the Flow of Non-Linear Learning abstract sounds interesting:

The Web is a non-linear environment which opens up potential for new approaches to learning and teaching, approaches which in many ways more closely approximate naturalistic and authentic approaches to learning. Yet a large proportion of online courses which have been developed in higher education represent conversions of print-based resources into Web-based delivery formats, the majority of which have replicated traditional linear and directive pedagogy. Such development represents something of a ‘miss-match’, not only to the online teaching environment but to the emergent learning approaches of a younger generation who are ‘at home’ with the online environment. This paper discusses the benefits of maintaining complexity and non-linearity in online learning with reference to the development of one tertiary course in computer education for pre-service teachers. The theory of complexity is briefly explored and its relevance to online teaching and learning is highlighted. An action research undertaking conducted over a four year period is drawn upon to illustrate the importance of future teachers understanding and experiencing non-linear and complexity-based online learning, and the metacognitive processes that can support adult learners to adapt to such an environment.

Some days, it seems that my "to do" reading list grows faster than I can ever catch up.