The Center for Teaching and Learning and Writing Across the Curriculum are pleased to announce an opportunity for faculty to incorporate weblogs into their courses during the spring semester.

This opportunity comes as part of the college’s ongoing pilot program with Movable Type blogging software. A flexible, user-friendly software, Movable Type has been used in more than 25 classes over the past three semesters. Both faculty and students have been very enthusiastic. Students have been energized by the process of authoring blogs, and faculty have been impressed by the quality of the writing that emerges when students are writing in the public forum created by the blogs.

The CTL and WAC will offer support--both technical and pedagogical--for the software, including an orientation meeting, workshops on MT’s advanced capabilities, and in-class demonstrations led by CUNY Writing Fellow Boone Gorges. You can get a sense of the software and the support available by taking a look at the MT portal page, “Blogging at Queens College,” and the support page, “Blog Tutorials” (both created by Boone):

http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu
http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/blogtutorials/

Typically, faculty have used Movable Type in one of the following ways:

1. To create individual blogs, linked to each other through a blogroll, for every member of a course;

2. To create a single blog to which every member of a course or department has posting privileges;

3. To offer students templates for uploading web content and creating student-authored web pages;

4. To create individual blogs within an interface that doubles as a course home page.

Our license is for 1,000 users, and course blogs will be created on a first-come, first-served basis. If you’re interested in using Movable Type in a course this spring or next fall, contact Mindy Miller with your course information (department, course number, course code, section number, and estimated enrollment).

If you have questions about using the software so that it’s manageable and serves your course goals, contact CTL Director Eva Fernández.