TITLE: When Blogs Do More Than Steal Time
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: December 17, 2004  1:12 PM
DESC: Reading a student's blog got me to thinking about how blogs can change the nature of dialogue at the university.
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BODY:
I often read about how blogging will change the world
in some significant way.  For example, some folks claim
that blogs will revolutionize journalism, creating an
alternative medium that empowers the masses and devalues
the money-driven media through which most of the world
sees its world.  Certainly, the blogosphere offers a
remarkable level of distributivity and immediacy to
feedback, see the <I>Chronicle of Higher Education</I>'s
<A HREF="http://chronicle.com/free/v49/i39/39a01401.htm">
   Scholars Who Blog</A>,
which chronicles this phenomenon.

As I mentioned
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2004-12.html#e2004-12-16T14_34_09.htm">
   last time</A>,
I'm not often a great judge of the effect a new idea
like blogging will have on the future.  I'm skeptical
of claims of revolutionary effect, if only because I
respect the
<A HREF="http://enthusiasm.cozy.org/archives/category/power-laws-and-networks/">
   Power Law</A>.
But occasionally I get a glimpse of how blogging is
changing the world in small ways, and I have a sense
that something non-trivial is going on.

I had one such glimpse this morning, when I took to
reading a
<A HREF="http://nothinghappens.net/">
   blog</A>
written by one of my student's blog.
First of all, that seems like a big change in the
academic order: a student publishes his thoughts
on a regular basis, and his professors can read.
Chuck's blog is a mostly personal take on life,
but he is the kind of guy who experiences his
academic life deeply, too, so academics show up
on occasion.  It's good for teachers to be reminded
that students can and sometimes do think deeply
about what they do in class.

Second change: apparently he reads my blog, too.
Students read plenty of formal material that their
instructors write, but blogs open a new door on
the instructor's mind.  My blog isn't one of those
confessional,
<A HREF="http://www.livejournal.com/">
   LiveJournal</A>-style
diaries, but I do blog less formally and about
less formal thoughts than I ordinarily write in
academic material.  Besides, a student reading
my blog gets to see that I have
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/cat_5.html">
   interests beyond computer science</A>,
and even a little
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2004-09.html#e2004-09-04T16_37_30.htm">
   whimsy</A>.
It's good for students be reminded occasionally
that <I>teachers</I> are people, too.

Third, and this is what struck me most forcefully while
reading this morning, these blogs make possible a new
channel of learning for both students and teachers.
Chuck blogged at some length about a
<A HREF="http://nothinghappens.net/2004/11/reflections-on-programming-assignment.html">
   program that he wrote for a data structures assignment</A>.
In the course thinking through the merits of his
implementation relative to another student's, he had an
epiphany about how to write more efficient multi-way
selection statements -- and "noticed that no one is trying
particularly hard to teach me" about writing efficient code.

This sort of discovery happens rarely enough for students,
and when it does happen it's likely to evanesce for lack
of opportunity to take root in a conversation.  Yet here
I am privy to this discovery, six weeks after it happened.
It would have been nice to talk about it when it happened,
but I wasn't there.  But through the blog I was able to
respond to some of the points in the entry by e-mail.
That I can have this peek into a student's mind (in this
case, my own) and maybe carry on a conversation about an
idea of importance to both of us -- that is a remarkable
consequence of the blogosphere.

I'm old enough to remember when Usenet newsgroups were
the place to be.  Indeed, I have a token prize from our
<A HREF="http://www.cedarlug.org">
   Linux users group</A>
commemorating my claim to the oldest Google-archived
Usenet post among our local crew.  New communities,
academic and personal, grew up in the Usenet news
culture.  (I still participate in an e-mail community
spun off from rec.sport.basketball, and we gather once
a year in person to watch NCAA tourrnament games.)  So
the ability of the Internet to support community building
long predates the blog.  But the culture of blogging --
personal, frequent posts sharing ideas on any topic;
comments and trackbacks; the weaving of individual writers
into a complex network of publication -- adds something
new.  And those personal reflections sometimes evolve
into something more over the course of an entry, as in
Chuck's programming reflection example.

I do hope that there isn't some sort of
<A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle">
   Heisenberg thing</A>
going on here, though.  I'd hate to think that students
would be less willing to write honestly if they know
their professors might be reading.  (Feeling some pressure
to write fairly and thoughtfully is okay.  The world
doesn't need any more whiny ranting blogs.)  I know
that, when I blog, at the back of my mind is the thought
that my students might read what I'm about to say.  So
far, I haven't exercised any prior restraint on myself,
at least any more than any thoughtful writer must exercise.
But students are in a different position in the power
structure than I am, so they may feel differently.

Some people may worry about the fact that blogs lower or
erase barriers of formality between students and professors,
but I think they can help us get back to the sort of
education that a university <I>should</I> offer -- a
<A HREF="http://www.gsprize.com/1997/theme06-church.html">
   Church of Reason</A>,
to quote Robert Pirsig:

<BLOCKQUOTE>
[The real University is] a state of mind which is regenerated
throughout the centuries by a body of people who traditionally
carry the title of professor, but even that title is not part
of the real University.  The real University is nothing less
than the continuing body of reason itself.
</BLOCKQUOTE>

The university is to be a place where ideas are created,
evaluated, and applied, a place of dialogue among students
and teachers.  If the blogosphere becomes a place where
such dialogue can occur with less friction -- and where
others outside the walls of the church building itself
can also join in the conversation, then the blogosphere
may become a very powerful medium in our world after all.
Maybe even revolutionary.
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