Classroom blogging

There's a course being taught this summer on Texas State and Local Government at Austin Community College that requires students to set up and write a blog as part of their grade.

Establishing a Texas-oriented political blog counts for 16.6% of your final grade. You'll display your knowledge and ability to think critically about Texas government during this process.

The instructor gives a list of Texas political blogs to use as suggested sources, one of which is mine (thanks, Professor!). That makes it fairly easy for me to track the progress of the students with Technorati, since most of them seem to have adopted that list as their blogroll. Here are the ones I've found so far:

The Heart of Texas
Big States Deserve Big Opinions
By Jingo!, who has the most interesting post I've read among these blogs so far.
Texas Government - Summer Session 2, who has the most literal titles.
Suspicious Minds
And finally, here's the professor's demo blog.

I've actually been mentioned in a syllabus or two before, but this is the first time that I can recall seeing a class where one's own blogging was part of the grade. It's a cool idea. Good luck with the class, y'all, and I hope some of you will consider maintaining your blogs beyond the point where they're being graded.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on July 15, 2007 to Blog stuff