I was at my old department at the University of Ibadan – Communication and Language Arts department – last Wednesday to give a talk on blogging. I had been thinking about how to get the department to include blogging and online journalism in its curriculum. I know a little about how curricula are revised, and I know that thinking of asking that the department considers a revision of its curriculum would be near impossible – although I think it really needs to do that. So I thought of something else. The route of curriculum revision might be long-winded, but that of including new components in already existing courses is pretty easy as it largely depends on the teacher. I thought then that it would be a good idea to ask whether they could include blogging and online publishing in the journalism courses of the BA in Communication and Language Arts programme.
I thought about these and decided to do an email to one of my former teachers in the department. Dr Ayobami Ojebode, the teacher I emailed, told me that he too had been thinking along the same lines. He conceded that it was still expensive to get on the internet in the country, but added that he had ‘decided never to allow any of those hindrances to hinder’ him, and so would go ahead with plans to include blogging as part of the lower level journalism courses in the next semester. He also added that he expected things to be easier as from the next session because the university recently decided to open cyber cafes in each hall of residence. We met when I was in the university about a month ago and I agreed to give a talk on blogging to the final year students of the department.
Normally, the final class produces a newspaper, but according to the teacher, they were unable to do so in the last one or two years because of the cost of production. He also said they were considering the option of online publishing. I had the idea that they could be made to publish the paper as a blog. Online publishing has the added advantage of the potentiality of being read by a much wider audience than if they had published in paper. It is only a potential though, because it also depends on the ability of the group to successfully market their blog. Thinking wildly for a moment, I thought that it would also be a good idea to make them learn how to promote their blog online. At least marketing is part of the curriculum of the programme.
The talk
It went really well. We had the problem of power, as usual, but the teacher, Dr Ojebode, had brought his own generator from home so we were able to power my laptop and the projector. There is wireless internet for the faculty, but even then, it was too slow for me to be able to show the students the process of opening a blog with blogger.com. I had to explain it to them, saying that it was relatively easy. All one has to do is to follow a couple of steps, not very different from opening an email. I also encouraged them to use the help feature of blogger whenever they have any problem.
I got the question about how to make money from blogging and I replied that it was possible to do that. I explained to them how Adsense works, but said that it was better not to think about making money from blogging, at least at the beginning. I also told them that I personally don’t like the idea of having Adsense on my blog. Apart from the fact that I find adverts on blogs distracting I think that thinking of making money from blogging is going to turn blogging into a job. I want to blog because I enjoy it, not because I want to make money from it. There are other things to do that from. At least that is what I think at the moment.
Some of the students were really interested in creating personal blogs, and I told them to send me an email whenever they had any problems with creating the blog. For those who are interested, the powerpoint presentation, in PDF, is here.
Great stuff.
I just found your blog and love it.
Look forward to reading more.
Great stuff.
I just found your blog and love it.
Look forward to reading more.
Hello Loomnie,
It was nice to read about your talk on blogging. It would be nice to see journalism courses include the aspects of professional blogging on their curriculum.
It was interesting to note that some wondered if money can be made from blogging, whilst that would be good, I think in most cases blogging is first about establishing a reputation for sound writing and exposition of ideas and opinions, money might then follow the body of work.
Adsense is obviously a shortcut to the money but that also depends on if you are getting adequate traffic to your blog – that, I would say is a function of the quality of content.
I was not able to read the PDF you attached, the headings are OK, but the text is garbled.
Regards,
Akin
Hello Loomnie,
It was nice to read about your talk on blogging. It would be nice to see journalism courses include the aspects of professional blogging on their curriculum.
It was interesting to note that some wondered if money can be made from blogging, whilst that would be good, I think in most cases blogging is first about establishing a reputation for sound writing and exposition of ideas and opinions, money might then follow the body of work.
Adsense is obviously a shortcut to the money but that also depends on if you are getting adequate traffic to your blog – that, I would say is a function of the quality of content.
I was not able to read the PDF you attached, the headings are OK, but the text is garbled.
Regards,
Akin
Guess you are the blogging ambassador now shey?
Guess you are the blogging ambassador now shey?
@Akin,
Thank you for the comments. I share the same sentiments with you about the quality of writing, Adsense and making money from blogging. Hmm… I wonder why the pdf is garbled. I have removed it and attached the slideshow instead.
@Oz
I am only representing our collective interests 😉
@Akin,
Thank you for the comments. I share the same sentiments with you about the quality of writing, Adsense and making money from blogging. Hmm… I wonder why the pdf is garbled. I have removed it and attached the slideshow instead.
@Oz
I am only representing our collective interests 😉
Hello Loomnie,
Thanks for the new attachment, it is nice to have opinions about blogging put together like that, even I got a slightly broader perspective about blogs.
Commonsense ideas about themes, clutter and only writing if you have something to say are important.
I have been on the verge of writing about poor blogs without titles or with meaningless entries like, “I have nothing to write about but I am writing anyway”.
It is one of the reasons why I refused to have my blog linked to Nigerian Super Blogs – they mess up my presentation style and you are lumped together with all sorts.
You talked about aggregators but did not say they could also be used to generate blog traffic by joining reputable or common-interest aggregators.
Finally, thanks for including my blog amongst the ones you read, well, you are in my Google Reader so I know when you’ve posted something online.
Regards,
Akin
Hello Loomnie,
Thanks for the new attachment, it is nice to have opinions about blogging put together like that, even I got a slightly broader perspective about blogs.
Commonsense ideas about themes, clutter and only writing if you have something to say are important.
I have been on the verge of writing about poor blogs without titles or with meaningless entries like, “I have nothing to write about but I am writing anyway”.
It is one of the reasons why I refused to have my blog linked to Nigerian Super Blogs – they mess up my presentation style and you are lumped together with all sorts.
You talked about aggregators but did not say they could also be used to generate blog traffic by joining reputable or common-interest aggregators.
Finally, thanks for including my blog amongst the ones you read, well, you are in my Google Reader so I know when you’ve posted something online.
Regards,
Akin
I totally enjoyed your talk at the University of Ibadan. No doubt that entrepreneur is our middle name and I am not surprised the money question came up. I would have insisted that the final class extracted the maximum benefits out of blogging. The only issue is simply that of excellence first.
The NY Times and Time Magazine are examples of buyers that paid (>$100,000) over the odds in order to acquire blogs. It is the excellence that they paid for and not just a blog. Real world values still holds true for the web logs and the possibilities of making a living out of blogs are endless but only the excellent will reap the ad or acquisition revenue.
I totally enjoyed your talk at the University of Ibadan. No doubt that entrepreneur is our middle name and I am not surprised the money question came up. I would have insisted that the final class extracted the maximum benefits out of blogging. The only issue is simply that of excellence first.
The NY Times and Time Magazine are examples of buyers that paid (>$100,000) over the odds in order to acquire blogs. It is the excellence that they paid for and not just a blog. Real world values still holds true for the web logs and the possibilities of making a living out of blogs are endless but only the excellent will reap the ad or acquisition revenue.
“the university recently decided to open cyber cafes in each hall of residence” That would be nice, but before they bring the computers, they could improve the living conditions. As I remember Melanby, it really needs a good cleaning (and maybe some new paint on the walls) first!
“the university recently decided to open cyber cafes in each hall of residence” That would be nice, but before they bring the computers, they could improve the living conditions. As I remember Melanby, it really needs a good cleaning (and maybe some new paint on the walls) first!
This is great. I am organising a series of workshops on web 2.0 tools at the moment and would like to include a link to your presentation on our project blog, if that’s okay. I think the participants would find it very useful.
It’s a shame that you were unable to take the students through the process of setting-up a blog; that was the most fun part of our workshop on blogging. However, the bandwidth issues can make the whole process incredibly frustrating. That notwithstanding, the benefits of blogging and participating in other web 2.0 tools makes it worth it for me.
Ore
This is great. I am organising a series of workshops on web 2.0 tools at the moment and would like to include a link to your presentation on our project blog, if that’s okay. I think the participants would find it very useful.
It’s a shame that you were unable to take the students through the process of setting-up a blog; that was the most fun part of our workshop on blogging. However, the bandwidth issues can make the whole process incredibly frustrating. That notwithstanding, the benefits of blogging and participating in other web 2.0 tools makes it worth it for me.
Ore
I hope members of the faculty board will hear about this so they can make a case for the implementation of the new course.
It’s a wonderful thing you did. But you didn’t tell us whether they made you the dept’s I.T consultant! :))
I hope members of the faculty board will hear about this so they can make a case for the implementation of the new course.
It’s a wonderful thing you did. But you didn’t tell us whether they made you the dept’s I.T consultant! :))
Impressive. I had my first degree from Communication and Language Arts, U.I and I am currently running a masters degree in new media.It would be interesting to include online journalism in CLA but frankly it would be hard. Without 24hr electricity, and 24hr internet connection, I just don’t see it because lecturers have to constantly link websites,blogs etc to elaborate a point.It would be another case of half bakedness.
perhaps half bread is better than nothing?
Impressive. I had my first degree from Communication and Language Arts, U.I and I am currently running a masters degree in new media.It would be interesting to include online journalism in CLA but frankly it would be hard. Without 24hr electricity, and 24hr internet connection, I just don’t see it because lecturers have to constantly link websites,blogs etc to elaborate a point.It would be another case of half bakedness.
perhaps half bread is better than nothing?