Thing 14

I explored technorati and did some various searches for things of interest. I think it's a great tool-it's definitely beneficial to have a search engine that is just for blogs. I also can appreciate the importance of tagging your posts if you want your blog to be viewed by the masses-it makes collaboration much easier. I looked up This American Life, my favorite radio show/podcast, and came upon a blog where people were naming favorite episodes. I ended up making a list of episodes I'd like to check out on their website, which was great.

I have been giving some thought to the idea of having my students create blogs. It seems like it could be a great ongoing assignment-to have them comment on things we discuss in class, or to do assignments online. But, it also seems like it would open up a can of worms in other ways. I don't want to have to monitor all of their posts or be the blogger police. But, I think it would also encourage them to write more. They are all on myspace (whether I like it or not), but there seems to be very little actual writing done on that site. A blog might be an appealing way for them to journal. I dunno. But, the other cool thing would be having them tag their blogs and seeing if we could get people commenting on and reading their blogs from around the country/world, introducing them to the positive side of the internet being a global community. I'll have to talk to the tech coordinator at my school and get his take on the pros and cons of this idea.  (This may have been a little off-topic, but I wanted to process that and see if anyone had any comments.)