Baldur comments on my students' definitions of blogs...
What most of the comments and views have in common is that weblogging seems to be a group process. It is always a part of a community, group topics, a gathering of ideas.
I suspect that this would not have been the common thread if I'd asked them the same question without first having had a discussion with them about the value of blogs as a conversational medium, and the importance of comments and trackbacks in facilitating those conversations.
Speaking of which, Baldur, you really need a comments function on your blog. :-) I got quite dizzy going back and forth between your blog and Dorothea's this morning...the comments and responses were fascinating, but the bouncing back and forth between blogs was disorienting.
In fact, the choice between reciprocal/trackbacked postings and comments is an interesting one. It reminds me a bit of the discussions we're having in my XML class about the choice of attribute vs element in an XML schema...
::::I suspect that this would not have been the common thread if I'd asked them the same question without first having had a discussion with them about the value of blogs as a conversational medium, and the importance of comments and trackbacks in facilitating those conversations.::::
I was pretty sure that was the case. Students rarely are that consistent unless there is a reason ;-)
It probably wouldn't have made a difference even if it had only been one student that mentioned 'message boards' simply because I had been itching make that point.
And yeah, I do need to set up a comment function somehow, as well as give the trackback thing more thought.
I do love the idea of setting up a class 'blog, though. Will probably try my best to have people at my university nick that idea for next winter's classes.