What can I use UMW Blogs for?

UMW Blogs has been used in a myriad of creative ways over the years by students and faculty alike. If you are unsure what direction you would like to take your blog, there are many tried and true options.

Academic Uses
Faculty and staff widely use blogs for their classes, either by encouraging or requiring their students to participate in online discussions.

A Group Blog
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6128/5962001686_033cd85f74.jpg

This blog is for the professor who wants to have the class blogging together as a group on one blog. This is probably the easiest to implement, given the Add Users widget, which allows students who already have a blog or username to simply sign up for the blog with their e-mail address. Zero work for the professor! (Loosely quoted from Andre Malan)


 * Prof. Kelli Slunt's Food Chemistry
 * Prof. Krystn Moon's Consuming and the American Dream
 * Prof. Mara Scanlon's Women in Modernism group blog
 * Prof. Jackie Gallagher's Natural Hazards

An Aggregated Course Blog
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6125/5962005622_2a75344b84.jpg

If many distributed posts are relevant to a certain subject or topic, they can be aggregated into one course blog (or, to quote Barbara Ganley, "Mother Blog") for a running stream of the latest work from various students within the class. This option allows students to own the work they do for a variety of classes in their own "digital notebook."

Examples:  Prof. Jim Groom's Digital Storytelling Prof. Ben LaBreche's Writing About Liberty Prof. Mindy Erchull's General Psychology Prof. Krystyn Moon's Our Nineteenth Century America Museum 

A Ghost Blog
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6024/5961458663_d726be9071.jpg

This blog is for the professor who doesn't want to be confused by hundreds of student posts knocking around his/her blog. The blog simply uses BDPRSS and the add-to-BDPRSS widget to populate a WordPress page with aggregated student entries. When another year of students comes, the old posts will still be there (or not, or in another blog that the new blog links to), but as newer posts come in, the old posts will fall off of the bottom of the feed and the blog will have just new fresh content without having to delete anything! (Loosely quoted from Andre Malan)

The primary difference between a ghost blog and an aggregated course blog is the impermanence of entries on the ghost blog. As new content fills the top of the page, older posts are bumped off the bottom. Aggregated course blogs both display and archive.

Examples:  Prof. Jami Bryan's Library and Internet Resources Prof. Nina Mikhalevsky's Banned and Dangerous Art Freshman Seminar Prof. Sue Fernsebner's Cultural History of Late 20th Century China</li> Prof. Jeffrey McClurken's Marching Home Freshman Seminar</li> Prof. Jeremy Larochell's Writing Ecology Freshman Seminar</li> </ul>

Personal Blog
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6003/5961378497_0975da9d0d.jpg

You can easily share your opinions, generate discourse, and interact with others using the best blogging software out there. Below are a couple of examples of personal blogs on UMW Blogs.

Examples:  Rachael Wonderlin's Rachael Dawne Writes</li> Mary-Kathryn Bywaters Read My Skin</li> Joseph Calpin's Panda Musings</li> Ripleedelamancha's Riplee Land</li> Shannon Hauser's The Mud Pit</li> Brad Efford's Blog</li> </ul>

Travel Blog
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7038/6926849007_449811678b.jpg

 View larger version on Flickr here .

Studying abroad this semester? Want to record your adventures and keep in touch with home? A travel blog is the perfect option! In the same vein as the personal blog, but with an international perspective. Many UMW students blog their experiences overseas during semesters or years abroad. Some, like Jennifer Davis, even blog about experiences abroad after graduation, such as the Peace Corps.

Examples:  Jennifer Davis' Jennifer in Mali</li> TWarner41's Australia Bound!</li> Sarah Kountz's Barrier Reef Brief</li> Jana Minchoff's il mio soggiorno in Italia</li> Felicia's Travels</li> </ul>

Review Blog
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6018/5961441897_1a40819cb2.jpg

If you love culture, a blog is a great place to share your opinions and thoughts about movies, literature, and music. Voice your thoughts about the most recent releases, or page homage to an undervalued cultural artifact.

Examples:  Stuff for Starving Students (technology)</li> <li>Anglo-Audiophile: The Reviews (music)</li> <li>The World You Love (theatre)</li> <li>Dancing Bread Rolls (film)</li> </ul>

E-Portfolio/Digital Resume
UMW Blogs is an ideal way for students to create a portfolio of class projects, or even a personal portfolio. Such a portfolio could conveniently go on a resumè or C.V.

Examples:


 * Serena Epstein's freelance creativty
 * Whitney Roberts' Intertextuality
 * Robert Lynne's Roblog

A blog can also be useful to clubs (recognized or infomal) as a way to centralize information. Plugins can help you easily create polls, set up group meetings, or allow members to vote on key issues.

Finally, check out Ten Ideas For Using UMW Blogs for more ideas. Remember, the only limit is your imagination!