We had 17 people in our workshop and, as always, I think most of them left with a pretty good idea of what Weblogs are all about and with a little buzz from the potential. Despite Blogger‘s redesign, we got them up and running on MoTime, which, of course, crashed for about a half an hour in the middle. But still, it makes a difference when people see for themselves just how easy it is to do this.
A couple of other raw observations…
I did about ten minutes on this whole blogging as verb idea and I think I was able to articulate pretty well what I think are the inherent benefits in the genre. I found myself really hoping they would go home and start posting and blogging, even more so than at past presentations. Probably because they actually made their own sites this time and because we’ve been talking about it so much in these here parts. We’ll see, as always…
The funniest part was at the end when one of the teachers said “So, what about wikis?” I was worried about overload already, but I launched into a 20-minute impromptu tour of Wikipedia (I changed NASCAR into NASTYCAR and then changed it back) and some of the free wiki sites. That whole concept I think left them dazed…and maybe confused. And interested.
Seems like there’s a whole new Internet literacy that teachers are going to have to get up to speed on at some point: Weblogs, RSS, Wikis, Furl etc.
I have posted my initial reaction to Will and Kevin’s presentation at my brand new blog. Will definitely is a “blogvangelist” and today’s seminar had some similarities to a tent revival without any of the guilt.
From my perspective, the class was still in reflection mode about blogs and not really tuned in to the Wiki discussion.
I recently did a section on weblogs and wikis for a group of faculty and had a somewhat similar experience. We were pressed for time and the whole “wiki way” takes some time to get used to.
But all of the participants left very excited about both technologies because they each have so many diverse applications, some of which are mutually exclusive…
The last part of your note is most interesting because I have been feeling the same thing. Between weblogs, wikis, RSS, furl/spurl, and del.icio.us (just to pick some big, important items) there is whole world that instructors need to get their mind around, and some of it only becomes clear when the bigger picture starts to resolve and take on some semblance of clarity (such as it is with these quickly moving targets).
I don’t think it turned into a “Wonders of Wikis” discussion, either – it was enough of a taste to get people interested (I think the audience was dazed, but warm to the idea), but the focus was certainly blog-centered. As the newly appointed “blog-master” in Galloway Twp., I was very excited to see how this technology is used in the classroom. I also left eager to share these best practices with my colleagues in our Technology Action Team. The next meeting is May 19, and the topic of discussion is – you guessed it – blogs. Thanks for the inspiration.