by Kieran Healy on February 1, 2005
I suppose I should have expected the likes of Michelle Malkin to treat the Iraqi elections as an opportunity to take a pot shot at “the Left.” As you know, we on The LeftTM are all for for more death and suffering in Iraq because it improves our case for universal health care and better prescription drug coverage. Like an excited kid on Christmas morning, Malkin wasn’t able to wait all day. She restrained herself till lunchtime (U.S. east coast time) on Sunday before indicting us along with a few other blogs: “Left goes into Hibernation”, “Crooked Timber is Silent on the Iraqi Elections“. Silent, silent, silent. You can practically hear the wind whistling through the trees around here. An excerpt from our non-existent commentary on the election appears on the Op-Ed page of Tuesday’s Dallas Morning News1, presumably as a big ole chunk of white space. I suppose we were hibernating, really, as long as you think “Hibernation” means “Doing some other things on Sunday (in our own time zones) before catching up on the news.”
fn1. Irritatingly detailed registration required. Try bugmenot.
by Eszter Hargittai on February 1, 2005
A while back I posted about my plans to teach a class in which each student would be required to maintain his or her own blog. We are now halfway through the quarter (really) and so I thought it would be a good time to get some outside readers to take a look at the students’ blogs. If you happen to have a moment and wouldn’t mind surfing over I am sure the students would be delighted to get some comments from people not enrolled in class. TheRockBlog.com has a link to each of the blogs in the right-hand menu.
As you will see, the quality of student posts differs quite a bit. This is not particularly surprising since one can expect some level of variation in the work of students for most classes. To give a bit of background on the content of the blog entries, students are required to post to their blogs each week discussing at least two of the reading assignments covered that week. Students can use their blogs to post other material as well. They are also required to post a comment on a peer’s blog each week. The syllabus also includes some additional blogging assignments (finding and discussing various online content).
Judging from midterm feedback, it sounds like most students are enjoying the blogging experience although some find commenting on others’ blogs a bit tedious. At the same time others find it disappointing that they are not getting more feedback so it’s hard to satisfy everyone. Having students blog about the readings is certainly helpful for an understanding of how they are processing the material. Their blog entries have guided discussion in several class sessions.
I’ve learned a lot from this experience and plan to write up a detailed description of the course logistics later. For now, feel free to take a look at how the student blogging is going by visiting some of their sites.
by Kieran Healy on February 1, 2005
This report of a survey of more than 110,000 (!) students at 544 high schools has been getting a lot of play. The survey found that one in three high schoolers think the First Amendment “goes too far”; that three quarters believe that flag-burning is illegal; and that 36% of them thought newspapers should get “government approval” before publishing stories in the newspaper.
The White House issued a statement congratulating American students not just for their views on constitutional law, but also for their “accurate characterization of the relationship between the Executive branch and the White House Press Corps.”
OK, I just made that up about the White House. But the study is real. Further reading of the full report reveals the usual smorgasbord of opinion that surveys like this typically bring out. For instance, substantially more teenagers believe that “musicians should be allowed to sing songs with lyrics others may find offensive” than believe that “newspapers should be allowed to publish freely without government approval of stories.” Even better, whereas only 49 percent thought that newspapers should be able to report without government approval, 58 percent said that _school_ newspapers should be able to report controversial issues without the approval of school authorities. I guess it all depends on who you think The Man is — the Prez or the Principal.