The above view is a snapshot I took on Albright College's main campus, in Reading Pennsylvania, from a window near where I am currently teaching Diversity to adult students.  I teach in Albright's Accelerated Degree Program, which is geared towards working adults.  By going to school one night a week for 4 hours, students can complete their 4 year degree.  To learn more, look at our web site:  http://www.albright.edu/accelerated/

Recently Albright hosted an excellent Teaching and Learning Conference, and the keynote speaker's talk had a big impact on me.  Gardner Campbell is a professor at Virginia Tech, and a maverick in the realm of using digital technologies in the classroom.  He told us that he has his students blog many of their assignments.  Although blogging is nothing new, it is certainly not a tool I have used in the classroom with my students, and I am eager to give it a try.  To learn more about Dr. Campbell and read his musings:  http://www.gardnercampbell.net/blog1/    Campbell made the very interesting comment about students seeking employment; how if when a future employer googles them (and they all do), if they find a well written academic blog, it will be impressive.  It is necessary to do whatever we can to set ourselves apart in this job climate, where every good job that is advertised is getting hundreds of resumes...

Students have to write many papers in this program, including a final paper for most classes.  In the current Diversity class that I am teaching, I offered the students a choice:  they are free to do the final paper as usual, or they can blog this assignment instead.  To adapt this to blogging, the students have to blog as many words as the paper would have been, it must be clean, well written, showing critical and analytic thinking.  They must still read and include professional resources and cite them properly.  A few students are up for this challenge, and I am really excited to see where this goes...stay tuned!