Back to School Blogging

Read, Brock. (2004). Back to school blogging. In P. De Palma (Ed.), Computers in society (pp. 63-66). Dubuque, IA: McGraw-Hill.
Unit 4, Article 14

Review by Kim Doyle

Blogging is helping new students enter college more confident and better prepared, as suggested by Brock Read in this article. Blogging has become a way for students to connect, ask questions, share advice or just get acquainted in a web-based environment. Nora Goldberger for example, whose experience was shared in this article, spent a great deal of time on a blog (group web-based journal) developed by Emily McRae, a sophomore at Davidson College. Nora, also preparing to enter Davidson College, received very helpful information about dorm life, meals and which courses she should take.

Web-based tools like LiveJournal, a free service, have made it possible for students to develop blogs where high school and college students can go to share information as well as to make social connections. Administrators agree this is becoming a useful tool for students and is actually helping freshmen become more self-reliant students. They are benefiting from the advice that upperclassmen are posting.

Leslie Marsicano, director of residence life at Davidson College, actually recommends the site to students and parents who call with questions about housing. Denying speculations that she has recruited upperclassmen to log on and mentor incoming students, she states that it works so much better if faculty and administrators stay off. College officials do have an interest in these online opportunities and suggest they can be better advertisement than a “glossy brochure”.

Brock says that blogs are also places where students go for socializing. Some blogs are more “chattier” and less focused than Davidson’s blog. Others form study groups through blogs and choose roommates. Whatever the purpose, this article presents blogs as a very helpful resource for students.

Reaction

I find this interesting. The skeptic in me wonders how safe these are and how accessible information might be to the wrong person. According to this article, however, blogs are not as accessible as other web sites such as MySpace and are therefore more secure. Obviously young students, especially students having just graduated from high school, have grown up with computers and it is natural for them to use online resources in this way. If they help students navigate the transition from high school to college and feel more prepared, academically or socially, then I guess that’s a good thing. Clearly they're not going to go away.