community blogs

Here are a couple excellent uses by UA departments.

During Summer 2005, New Student Orientation and S.A.L.T. Strategic Alternative Learning Techniques are using blogs as a way to post information to new students and their families.

The Center for English As A Second Language has had several blogs created to promote writing among CELS students and teachers participating in CESL courses.

The College of Nursing has started using a blog for its Admissions program to post information and promote interaction with students.

The College of Medicine's Dean's office started a blog to further intra-college communications

The Office of Enrollment Management has ten students with blogs. It is called the Blog Squad and the idea is to have UA students write about their undergraduate experience and be available to students outside the UA to contact them with questions.

Eller College has a program called "Student Insights" where students have blogs to share their insights on their life in Eller's MBA program. Eller rolled out the program last fall with four or five students. The idea is for students to write interesting, positive blog entries -- then MBA recruiters can point prospective students to these blogs. Eller provided attractive graphics and instructions on what colors they wanted for backgrounds. The blogs are fairly customizable within stylesheets so I've been able to design the blogs in Eller's colors and style. This led me to do some customization with the blogs I've created since spring semester began. I can either grab a banner logo off a department's webpage and put it at the top of the blog homepage or create something myself using Photoshop and my limited graphic artist ability. The value is in "branding" the blog as part of that department.

In the last few weeks, I've created five blogs for the Center for English as a Second Language. CESL is going to use blogs to explore new ways to reach prospective students, current students and teachers.

Coconino Cooperative Extension has been using a blog for Arizona Master Naturalists for about a year now and in mid-April I created a blog for another College of Ag extension service. It's also up in Coconino County and focusing on high elevation gardening. Something written on the Master Naturalist's blog reflects on how blogging suited its needs.

"Many communities and organizations rely on citizen volunteers for implementing youth education programs, operating parks, nature centers and natural areas, and for providing leadership in local natural resource conservation efforts. The Master Naturalist program in Coconino County is directed at creating a corps of well-informed volunteers to deliver quality environmental education programs and promoe stewardship of Arizona's natural environment."

We've had other campus endeavors explore the use of blogs to promote discussion of educational and professional issues. UA Online Arts Resources and Music Musings in the College of Fine Arts took a look at blogging in this way. An academic advisor in the College of Nursing has just began to explore blogging as a way of reaching students in new ways. A couple of my IT colleagues are using blogs to promote discussions on issues such as open source and new technologies. It's a great way to share the knowledge.

Students Across Borders Blog

For the summer 2003 program, SAB gave each student in the program a blog. They met at least once a week in the LTC to write about their experiences in the program that week. Students in this program came from Yuma, Tucson and Sonora. Some had friends or faculty who posted comments. This summer the program plans to use a blog "to provide an online forum for students, their families and the instructional team to share information and comments on the program." In the summer 2004 program, blogs were again used.

 

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