WEB DEVELOPMENT BLOG

March 13, 2007

Case Wordnerds to discuss blogging

School of Nursing

The Case Writers' and Editors' Forum, WordNerds, will discuss blogging next Wednesday, March 21st, in room 2280 (2nd floor) at the School of Nursing. I'll be leading this discussion in which we'll cover a brief overview of blogging, then discuss ways to use blogging in our marketing, recruitment and other communication efforts. I've asked Jeremy Smith, Case's blog administrator, to join us to share his opinions and expertise.

About Wordnerds

For those looking for brainstorming partners, story ideas, or the chance to benefit from the best practices other Case communicators have developed, Case's WordNerds meets every third Wednesday of each month for lunch, networking, professional discussions, and general moral support. All university staff members involved in writing, editing, communications, public relations, marketing, and recruiting are welcome. Send e-mail to wordnerds@case.edu for more information, or to join the mailing list.

Blogging? What's to know?

Regular readers of the Web Development Blog are already quite familiar with blogging. For members of Wordnerds, who may not be as familiar with the topic, I've posted a very general introduction to blogs and podcasts below. I wrote this last summer as part of another project, but the principles still apply. Read this now to get a jumpstart on next week's discussion.

Blogs: Web sites with benefits

According to the Case Blog FAQ, "Weblogs, or blogs, are a way of publishing to the web one idea at a time. By simplifying the process of publishing, letting authors create posts easily, and making it simple to link to related ideas on the Web, blogs make it easy to update a Web site while still making sure your words retain a clear, personal voice."

While often thought of as online diaries or journals, blogs can be written by one or more authors and used in any number of ways. Here at Case, the Undergraduate Admission blog allows admission staff to share ideas with one another and give prospective students a glimpse into the way the admission process works. Because the blog system allows readers to make comments, prospective students can ask questions related to specific blog postings and receive answers not only from admissions staff, but also from other Case faculty, staff and students who read the blog.

According to admission's former writer—now director of media relations, Lisa Chiu "We launched our blog last summer as another way to connect with prospective students. Ours is a group blog, so we have several people who post—admission counselors, financial aid counselors, and marketing and communications staff. We post on a variety of topics, some serious, some silly. We love when high school students leave comments on our entries—it's always great being able to spark a stimulating conversation. It's exciting to see that high school students from all over the world are reading our blog and learning more about Case."

One of the greatest features of a blog is its ability to syndicate content. As wire services such as Reuters distribute news to media outlets around the globe, you as a blogger can distribute your content via RSS or Atom feeds. These feeds allow users to subscribe to a variety of blogs via aggregators such as http://www.bloglines.com.

What this means to you as a reader is that instead of visiting the 10 different Web sites where your favorite blogs are published, you can instead go to an aggregator such as Bloglines, subscribe to your favorites, then read them all in one place. Another example of an aggregator is Planet Case. Planet Case aggregates all the most recent postings from the Case blogs. I usually skim Planet Case at least once a day because it allows me to catch up with my favorite Case blogs as well as learn of new ones.

Highlights of the blogs on Planet Case today (last summer) include the latest updates—with photos—from Kelly, who is studying and doing community outreach in Uganda; a post from Weatherhead's Professor Piderit, in which she explores the nature of an "organization" and opens up the topic for group discussion; and part 4 of a series of insightful philosophical entries entitled "Why we must learn to see ourselves as others see us" written by Case's most prolific blogger, Mano Singham, director of the University Center for Innovation in Teaching and Education.

While content found on the blogs is easily viewed through aggregators, it can also be found elsewhere on the Case Web site. Our office uses the blog system to publish news stories about Case. The headlines from these stories are automatically pulled into pages such as the home page and the MyCase portal and can be repurposed in their entirety or by topic on pages throughout the Case site.

The blog system's ability to syndicate information is also what enables us to podcast audio or video content.

Podcast, both noun and verb

A podcast (the noun) is basically just an audio or video file that has been uploaded to the Web in such as way that it can be downloaded automatically through software—such as iTunes—that can read syndicated feeds. While users may also be able to download such files from regular Web sites, the ability to subscribe to a feed—as one subscribes to a magazine—lets users have their audio and video content delivered automatically to their computers. To podcast (the verb) is simply a matter of publishing your content to a system, such as a blog, that can disseminate the file via syndication.

This is much less complicated that it sounds. As I type this on my computer, iTunes is checking my subscriptions and downloading new files. The podcasts I listen to include radio shows from the BBC and NPR, lectures from the City Club of Cleveland, academic lectures as well as some very amusing videos on learning German. To subscribe to these I simply copied the addresses of their feeds from their Web sites and pasted them into iTunes. Now I can watch or listen to the files—at my convenience—by copying them to my iPod, burning them to CD or just using my computer.

Here on campus, it is also fairly simple to produce a podcast. For example, earlier last year Aaron Shaffer, formerly of the university's Freedman Center, gave a talk about blogs, wikis, and podcasting. Using a digital recorder, he recorded the talk, then—using software provided by the center—he added the slides from his demonstrations and saved the augmented audio file in the appropriate format. To podcast the file, he simply uploaded it to the Freedman Center Blog—which supports RSS and Atom feeds. Those who couldn't attend the lecture can listen online or subscribe to the podcast.

Podcasting has become so easy in fact that Silicon Republic.com announced in March 2006 that podcasts now outnumber radio stations.

On a different topic…

I will be out of the office tomorrow through Tuesday. Please direct any Web development questions to Kevin in my absence.

Stumble It!

Posted by: Heidi Cool March 13, 2007 05:08 PM | Category: Announcements , Blogging , Heidi's Entries , Podcast Recommendations , Podcasting

Posted by: hac4 (Heidi Cool) March 13, 2007 05:08 PM | Comments (0) | Trackback

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