The Value of a College Degree in the Networked World says:
Selling students a degree does not fulfill the responsibility of schools. It’s not enough. To prepare college students for success in the world in which they will live, schools must teach the students to share. Schools much teach students how to be public; public in the world of digital.
I have had difficulty with this. No matter how much I tell my students, they often do not do what I’ve said. I just went in today and deleted one student’s name from a post. She’s given her last name as her handle and I don’t want the two connected.
Do teach them to blog. Encourage them to connect their public blogs at conferences and create a personal learning network of their peers.
I am trying to do this within our class blog, getting the student connected and paying attention to others who are like them (or not). Tinto says that connection helps students stay in college and I want that for them.
I think as the cohort class for health science majors comes to fruition that the sort of connected blogging that the article is talking about will flourish. Â I certainly hope so, anyway.