Scott Hambrick’s site I felt had a lot of promise, if only he continued along with it for his own personal use. His biggest strength I felt was that he put a lot of his own voice into the blog. The way I felt that he did this the best was his posts considering the birth of his son on his home page. To me such side posts that do not concern themselves with the main topic (in this case yet again technology and education) of the site help invite the reader into the author’s life. Other than this, it’s hard to describe how his voice comes through in his blogging as opposed to the other bloggers. Maybe it’s just that I know he’s a former Mason student and a proud father, and I can relate better that way.
Another point that I enjoyed about the blog was that he included video unlike the other sites I have looked at so far. The videos weren’t only a nice change of pace where I could be passive at gaining information from his site, but also is an example of an author utilizing additional tools the internet has to offer. I see this change up on routine as a great way that a teacher could keep student’s attention. Scott himself even makes mention to how if a student is not invested in a class, then it doesn’t matter if you include twitter or blogging, they still won’t get that much out of the class. I really agree with his point there, and think the addition of videos and any other tools for the web can help engage students. For example if a teacher only assigns readings from blogs and twitter feeds, then expects students to only write in response, there really hasn’t been a big change in engagement. A teacher at this point may as well assign text book reading and papers to be written. In the end it’s still a traditional assignment, only using the internet instead of paper. Sure it makes handing in homework easier on the teacher, and opens up their resources for students to read, but engagement really may not be altered that much.
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