Best of the Blog: A liberal arts education wrapped up in a blog
The following post from April 2, 2004 received feedback indicating the featured site provided an interesting and potentially useful resource. It's being republished as one of the "Best of the Blog" entries.
Scenario: You're teaching an interdisciplinary liberal arts course. You give your students the following assignment:
"Visit the blog Arts and Letters Daily, read all the postings and follow all the links for each day of the semester, and keep a journal summarizing your findings."
Question: How much credit do you give for this assignment? 10% of the course, 30%, perhaps full course credit? Feeling generous, how about a four year degree? Actually, as you'll see, the assignment would be virtually impossible to complete.
While Weblogs are often the product of individuals, a number of organizations have adapted a "blog style" web page offering frequent updates of information, ideas, and links. One such site, Arts and Letters Daily, produced by The Chronicle of Higher Education, is loaded with references and links to a rich variety of articles and resources that might be useful to teachers in various disciplines. The site adds new content six days a week.
I had trouble pulling myself away from this blog - there is so much to explore. Might this be a site that we can use with our students?