Creative Industries: Paul Holland

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Creative Industries Paul Holland

• Weblogs
• Some major and distinct characteristics of a
  Weblog
• A multifunction device - the intersection of
  mailing, chatting, journaling and publishing
• A vehicle for both monologue and dialogue (and
  within each the possibility of poly-vocalisation)
• A continuing process rather than a finite product
• A tool that encourages and technically supports
  the viral spread of information and the
  subsequent growth of communities of interest
• A device for information flow that cuts through
  and across traditional institutional patterns of
  information flow

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Creative Industries Paul Holland
Educational Uses for Weblogs Log Reflective
Writing Individual students can use weblogs to
create and collect reflective exercises such as
journals, assignment responses, or directed
writing exercises. Using a weblog, instructors
don't have to collect, sort, and archive email
messages or bulletin board entries. Because
weblog entries are "published" rather than simply
sent to an individual, it highlights and
reinforced the idea of semi-formal discourse. If
the weblogs are made public (or shared with just
the rest of the class), then the student will
gain practice writing for others.
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Creative Industries Paul Holland
Educational Uses for Weblogs Create a Class
Community A single weblog can be maintained by a
group of authors. Creating a single weblog
instance in which all students in a course become
authors is a natural method for creating a class
community. Like a discussion board, each
instructor will need to facilitate the flow of
posts, model good blogging behaviours, and define
expectations for what students can (and should)
post. A class weblog might be simply topical or
it might be assignment driven. This kind of
community weblog can be particularly useful in
the distance education setting, to combat "the
loneliness of the long-distance learner."
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Creative Industries Paul Holland
Educational Uses for Weblogs Create a
Collaborative Resource A weblog can be used to
create a collaborative resource. Having students
collaboratively build a weblog around a specific
topic is not only a good exercise in research and
writing, but may well result in a genuinely
useful resource to the world at large. Weblog
software lowers the barriers to entry to allow
for this kind of collaboration at a distance.
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Creative Industries Paul Holland
Educational Uses for Weblogs Create a Class
Information Site In a distance education
setting, timely and efficient information
dissemination is critical. Weblogs are easy to
maintain and post, and most weblog tools allow
for different streams of information that can be
syndicated and picked up by students in a variety
of different ways. This is more visible than
discussion board posts or posting such
information as course documents, while allowing
for room to expand on topics and posts.
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Creative Industries Paul Holland
Educational Uses for Weblogs The Key Idea is
to create critical conversation and connections
in the learning experience. Weblogs enable more
than just a personal writing space, but they
invite users to participate in a larger
community, to take their place in the information
ecology, to learn how to participate in and
perform (not just learn about)

• critical thinking
• creating a narrative
• formal and informal discourse
• research and attribution
• Linking
• writing for others
• taking creative risks
• collaborating
• participating in a variety of conversations