The Center for Teaching and Learning and Writing Across the Curriculum are pleased to announce the opportunity for faculty to incorporate weblogs into their courses during the approaching fall '08 semester.

Our current 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 fall, please register online by August 15.

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 45 classes over the past four 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. You can read more about the project in an article in last November's issue of FYI.

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 as needed. 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" :

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.

Movable Type can be used in other creative ways as well, such as a platform from which to present an on-line publication. See (on-line, powered by Movable Type) the spring '08 issue of WAC's Revisions 'zine.

If you have questions about using the software so that it's manageable and serves your course goals, or if you would like links to some sample blogs so you can see what the software can do, please contact Melinda Miller by email (Melinda.Miller@qc.cuny.edu) or phone (718-997-4650).

From an email from Ken Lord, QC's Blackboard administrator, dated 08/21/2008:

CUNY CIS has installed a new version of Blackboard (Version 8). Most schools, including us, will begin using it in the Spring 2009 semester. A few schools are using it this semester. As a consequence there are now three links on the CUNY Portal in a module called "Blackboard Gateway" (on the top right). Please use the bottom link to access Blackboard (Version 6.3) as usual. Please watch your email for announcements of workshops that will provide training for the new Blackboard system and other information.