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October 24, 2003

UofT Bulletin on Blogs

... and me. No one told me, until barry mentioned it just today, that the UofTBulletin (pdf) has a nice article on blogs that mentions me. You think they'd have contacted me or something, but no, I guess enough of my life is on the blog that contacting wouldn't make any difference. Here's the text: Net News Getting Blogged Down By Audrey Fong IN CASE YOU HAVENˆT HEARD ABOUT THE úHOTTESTî THING IN THE EVERchanging Internet subculture, a significant number of Internet users are jumping on the blog bandwagon. Although some portray blogging Ä a daily web log or journal Ä as a faddish digital phenomena, others believe it is here to stay. In fact some academics like Jason Nolan, lecturer and scholar-in-residence at the Knowledge Media Design Institute, have been blogging for years. Others, such as Professor Henry Farrell of political science at U of T at Scarborough, are fairly new to blogging. úBlogs are pretty much what you make of them. They are clearly flexible in their interpretation, manifestation, implementation and distribution,î Nolan said. Nolan, who views keeping a daily web log as an empowering communications medium, has been doing it for over two years. úBack in 1994, the World Wide Web was going to give everyone access to their own web page and the potential for them to have an online presence,î he said. úIˆve seen how hard it is for the average individual to negotiate all the aspects of maintaining a web presence, even without considering the difficulty of conceptualizing and organizing content.î Many academics see blogs as potentially useful teaching, learning and research tools. They can be used to update course information and provide journaling and/or research tools for students as well as the ability for researchers to share information with colleagues. úBlogs are a valuable sounding board for ideas at their early stages,î Nolan added. Farrell also sees many advantages of blogging for academics. úItˆs a medium that allows one to give forth on issues of interest without having to write academic articles or go through the pain of getting op-eds accepted by papers with wide circulation.î Although Farrell sees blogging as a congenial way to mix scholarship and his interest in current affairs, literature and various other topics, he hopes to incorporate a blogging component into a course next spring. Nolan is currently researching problems with blogs Ä whoˆs actually doing it and identifying the cultural biases of blog technologies. To view Nolanˆs blog, click on http://jasonnolan.net/; Farrellˆs blog is at http://www.henryfarrell.net/blog/."

Posted by jason at October 24, 2003 05:48 PM