I thought we all thought that "kids today" are swarming around the blogosphere, constantly creating edgy new sites and revamping the way we think and act on the internet. Hmmmm, maybe not so. I created a blog for my Humanities class that I teach at a local community college, then realized that most of them didn't know how to access it or leave comments. After walking them through the process, I then realized (duh) that many didn't know what a blog was. Today's class was thus on blogs and I had them read the "Decoding the Blogosphere" article from the Courant. I booked a computer classroom and we all blog-surfed. I took them to CTweblogs.com, Coffee Rhetoric, and Daily Kos as examples of some of the types of blogs that are out there. I then introduced them to the blog search feature on Google. Judging from the giggles and snickers as they crusied around on their own, I guess they found some fun and interesting stuff, to put it mildly.
I felt like I was Janey Appleseed, spreading little kernels of blog-fo among my students. Pretty cool feeling. This of course got me thinking...blogging isn't exactly America's favorite pastime AT THE MOMENT, if 15 out of 20 freshman college students weren't doing it until I taught them how. I think I'll try this again next semester, and perhaps the next, and see how fast the addictive blogging habit spreads. For now, though, I feel like part of a thrilling cutting-edge cool movement -- and a bit of a geek.
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2 comments:
Kids are on Facebook. Check ibiblio blog. It is mostly 30+ crowd on blogger meetups and bloggercons. We'll see what happens in the future.
Last week, I spoke at a class on Social Relations in Cyberspace. It is an anthropology class that looks at blogs, IMing, online games, etc.
Everyone in the class knew what a blog was. They had to. It was a topic of their most recent reading assignments.
However, almost none of them blogged or read blogs. Some of them had had blogs in high school, but didn't blog now. They were fascinated to meet a real life, professional blogger.
To make some sweeping generalization, it seems as if there are the teen angst bloggers, the mommy bloggers, the political bloggers (older folks like me), and some interesting edgy new bloggers. However, I suspect that the edgy new bloggers are out of college and most college students are busy with other things.
BTW, if you ever want me to speak with your class about blogging, let me know.
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