So, I survived day one of grad school.
Actually, it wasn't that hard. I showed up with my notebook, my pen, and sat at the computer. The class is taught by a former co-worker, and they've lumped grad students in with undergrads (joy). There are probably 10 of us.
Our task today: Set up a blog on Blogger.
Seriously.
Two of us already blog, so it took us about five minutes. Several others had never heard of a blog or Blogger or TypePad or Wordpress.
Seriously.
If you are a communications undergrad (and as best I can tell, I'm the only grad student in there), how can you NOT know about this? I was amazed.
So, I now have two blogs, one here, and one for class. I have to do a major project. No idea what that might be, but if you have ideas for a multimedia one that I can do in a month, shout out below.
The rest of the class will involve things that I barely know how to do . . . building a website using Dreamweaver, podcasting, vidcasting, all those cool toys I barely know how to use.
But day one was just easy. Hope it stays that way.
2 comments:
Yes, Virginia, there are still people who don't know what a blog is, just as there are still people with dial-up Internet access. Eh, there are worse things to be ignorant of, I suppose.
Don't be too quick to dismiss a class with undergrads. True, there are plenty of undergrads who are poor students who don't give a whit about anything but whining until they get an A (but they are plenty of lousy grand students, too). But I've also had classes with undergrads who are enthusiastic, eager to help, and know more about technology than you can believe. Sometimes, they're better teachers than the prof. Wait and see.
Blogging is easy. Web design and Dreamweaver take awhile. But it's not too hard to build a basic site; all you need is a few hours when you can sit and focus on the task at hand. And don't forget to surf the Web when you're in search of code to build a nifty pop-up window or something like that. The cool thing about the Internet is that it's ALL open source (use the handy "view source" option in your toolbar). Whatever you want to do, a quick Google search will probably find it for you.
Cheating? No, sharing. Believe me, the tech guys I work with do the same thing. Everyone does.
As for a project, well, how about an updated mommy blog with a few podcasts? You're a good writer, Sherrie, and you're an authority on the subject. Why not start building a Web resource for mommies and start linking?
Yeah, but they are junior communication majors.
I'd have thought by now they'd have run into the concept. :)
Kinda makes all the blog crud that the admissions office wants me to do seem irrelevant.
I've had good undergrads, too. Keep in mind I use them as sla-er-writers. I was just shocked at how 80% of them had never run into the blogging concept. Kinda scary, that.
And I've thought about taking Mommy-Tracked live. I'm not quite there yet, but maybe in a few months. I'm still toying with a few things, and I'll need more time to moderate comments if I take it to the masses. I've watched Bitch Ph.D.'s site when it hit the mass media (and Technorati), and she gets anywhere from 10 to 500 comments a post.
Right now, for my big project, I'm going to kick out another thing for either my magazine or help out a co-worker who needs multimedia stuff for the work website. That way, I won't feel guilty doing homework during work hours. :)
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