Telling stories, making connections
I’ve been inspired by Chris and Carol to start a blog and try to “narrate my work” to use Jon Udell’s lovely phrase. I’ve been reading blogs for a number of years and glimpsed what’s possible when a group of distributed colleagues use this venue to experiment, learn and share with each other. And thanks to Chris and Carol we’re off to a feisty start!
Is it my imagination or does anyone else glimpse a sense of humour in Carol choosing a blog to articulate the “high touch” side of the debate? I suspect we’re closer to consensus than it might appear. Or that’s how I’m choosing to interpret it. I’m hungry for the nitty-gritty: how do we do this well? There’s no doubt that a f2f workshop might beat a shovel ’em with information website. But that’s not what’s jazzing those of us who are excited about the read/write web or web 2.0.
LEAP is a site at UBC, aimed at supporting student engagement. Because it’s built on a blog platform a couple of things are possible:
- multiple authors can publish directly to the web from their desktop. No intervention needed from programmers.
- readers can send feedback and ask question directly to the author/the person actually responsible for that area via comments.
This has allowed multiple stakeholders to come together from different units and student groups. It’s meant they’ve had to work through notions of authority and voice- who gets to be “the expert”. It’s allowed personal story to be placed beside more traditional forms of advice and programming. It invites reaction and participation from readers and models ways to get more deeply involved.
In Career Services we’re all about making connections. In its most basic form that’s what I imagine we’re doing: connecting students to people, ideas, opportunities and themselves. Ideally this is a process that has begun long before a student arrives on campus and that continues throughout their lives.
A blog or any of the other web 2.o tools enables a kind of conversation to occur. And this is where their radical, transformative potential in the university lies. Alongside the feast of opportunities and ideas served up at university, we now have the ability- faculty, staff and students- to talk and reflect on them in a myriad of ways that didn’t exist only a few short years ago.
I’m thinking that college is now the opportunity not only to begin one’s personal library, but also to build one’s personal suite of trusted and inspiring experts. That of course is what already happens to some extent, but now it need not be confined to the campus. The campus is where the beloved local professor simply starts the ball rolling. Gardner Campbell
What will Career Services bring to the conversation?
Love and Work 
Testing the comment feature
carol naylor
May 24, 2007
If professionals are blogging with students, what is the responsibily of the professional if a student posts something that raises “red flags”? I’m thinking of things like inappropriate comments, threatening comments or anything else that would warrent action if the comment was made f2f.
workshop
May 29, 2007