Antonya English's blog on Gator sports for The St. Petersburg Times

One of the reasons that I started a blog is because blogging is going to be a writing assignment in MMC 2100 this semester. I thought I should try out blogging before making it an assignment for the students.

Tomorrow the lab instructors and I meet to discuss how to take what was a great idea last semester — “Let’s include blogging next semester.” — and make it an effective learning activity this semester.

When we teach blogging, we’ll talk about what a blog is and the professional and ethical considerations of blogging as a media writer. We’ll talk about the standards we have for the assignment and the focus for the postings. We’ll show the students good examples of media-related blogs, like Antonya English’s blog for The St. Petersburg Times. We’ll help the students set up a free blogging account if they don’t have a blog.

What if they already have a blog but one that might introduce us to some aspects of their personal lives that we really would rather not know about?

Then we have to think about practical aspects like — word count. The students will want to know, and the lab instructors have to think about the time involved in reading their 40 students’ blogs. And how will we mark point deductions for grammatical and spelling errors?

Should be an interesting discussion with the lab instructors — and then with the students. I certainly am better prepared to consider the issues now that I’ve been blogging.