"Using Weblogs in Your Writing Center"

By
In the latest issue of The Writing Lab Newsletter Melinda Baer writes about using blogs in the center and kindly mentions PeerCentered. The Writing Center at Northern Illinois University where Baer works has been using a private, in-house blog for a while now. Consultants post twice a week and use those posts as fodder for later discussion in staff meetings.

I am curious how other places are using blogs. Perhaps I should whip up a survey?

Comments

  1. Michelle6:18 PM

    I'm curious, too, as to the success rate of tutors using blogs. We tried to set up something similar at Stony Brook University, but it didn't take - we tried using Blackboard in a few different ways but it was like pulling teeth. (You'd think that writing tutors would be more reflective and be more willing to write, but we had trouble with that.)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Laura4:27 PM

    We've had a blog in our Writing Center (Yakima Valley Community College) for about a month now. We keep the URL private so student consultants can feel comfortable writing about whatever concerns them. So far, though, most of the posts have been stuff the consultants find interesting, not necessarily strictly related to their work. Oh, and we use the blog to post a recap of our last staff meeting (for consultants who are absent). The blog, though, is not used that much -- only one or so posts per week. I'm sure it'll just take time to get everyone going on it. I do like the idea of requiring posts, but we haven't tried that yet.
    Laura D. May
    Lead Consultant, YVCC Writing Center
    http://www.ideasarelikestars.typepad.com

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

IWCA Forum: Peer Tutor => What do we call ourselves: the poll!

By
I have posted a poll in the IWCA forums: IWCA Forum: Peer Tutor => What do we call ourselves: the poll! It is a part of an earlier discussion that kind of petered out about the titles used for writing center workers. Please take a moment and vote! If you don't have an account on the forum, you can register for one by clicking on the "Register" link (next to the rocket icon in the top-right of the page.) Don't forget to state your institutional affiliation when you request and account. (That's how the IWCA Forum keeps out spam accounts.)
Read more

Are we aiding and abetting fraud?

By digigraf
So, I was driving to school today and as always was listening to NPR (that's my self-promoting conversational piece informing you on how intelligent and connected I am) really, I just like the coverage on the campaign and "This American Life." Okay, I am already getting off topic and I haven't even gotten on topic yet. Anyhow, the story I was listening to was about a woman who used to be a part of the admissions committee at Dartmouth and is now working as an independent consultant helping students with the admissions process for schools. For a cool $40,000, she will work with you from 9th grade to graduation to help prepare you for your college admissions process. And for the budget price of $14,000, she will help you write and revise your college application essay. So, how in the world does this correlate to our world? Well, her work with college applications includes helping students decide on effective topics (staying away from "teen angst, or th
Read more

Improving Your Teaching Style Through Student Feedback

By Darcy
At the Texas A&M University Writing Center, some of the consultants are “loaned out” to other departments as writing assistants. We, as undergraduates, work one on one with a professor in many different scenarios, reading drafts, looking at grammar, style, and structure in a student’s paper for the professor, and making presentations tailored to these particular students about grammar. Starting my second semester as an Undergraduate Writing Assistant, I discovered that this class, of future Special Education teachers, was very different from my previous class, a group of senior Agronomy majors focused on soil and crop sciences. Part of my job as an assistant is to give feedback on personal reflections that each member of the class writes, and they turn in five of these reflections throughout the semester. After receiving the second group of reflections it became abundantly clear to me the students were not growing as writers. Each student seemed to be making mistakes repeatedly on
Read more