March 11-15

This week at DGS and Pre-Law, I spent about 45 minutes posting information to the Pre-Law and DGS facebook pages, Twitter accounts, news feeds, and calendars. I shadowed one of the Pre-Law advisors in an appointment with a student. This was a first-time appointment so it was good to hear how an advising appointment goes when the student is not in the process of applying to law school yet or if they are going to apply at all. I also went to the Pre-Law staff meeting and the DGS staff meeting. At the DGS staff meeting, the Business Minor advisors talked with us about changes to the minor, which will be helpful to me because many of the chemistry students want a business minor. I also worked on Pre-Law and DGS social media quarter sheets in hopes of presenting them to some of the staff to see if they will want to use them in the future to hand out to students. This quarter sheet would be passed out to students when they come in for appointments. I also worked on the National and International Scholarship PowerPoint slides. I was asked to take information and format it in a feasible way.

Posting to social media: 1 hour
Staff Meetings: 1 hour 45 minutes
Shadowed and debriefed: 1 hour
National and International Scholarships PowerPoints: 2 hours
Pre-Law and DGS social media quarter sheets: 1 hour
Reading and Blogging: 1 hour


This week, I read Exploring the Use of Blogs as Learning Spaces in the Higher Education Sector (Williams, 2004). The article discusses  some of the benefits to blogging, such as active learning, chances for critical thought, and a chance to thoroughly and thoughtfully carry conversations with others. The article also presents data on two MBA courses that used a blog to promote dialogue on issues related to the classes they were in. Overall, the students enjoyed the blog and would like to see more blogs being used in future classes. However, some students were hesitant to contribute to the blog because they were nervous about posting and what others would think of their post. The blog at Pre-Law does not act now as a forum for dialogue, but it does act as a form of knowledge dissemination. I wonder if the blog would get more followers if it was a place for dialogue and students could talk to each about law school, share news with each other, etc. I have a hard time believing though that students would go out of their way to post to each other, for potentially the same reasons as Williams and Jacbos (2004) finds that the MBA students are nervous to post. Also, I think students would be unmotivated to post information to the blog because that would require going through the process of posting. I think this could work if students were reading news on law school, but overall I do not think it would be successful.


Williams, J. B. & Jacobs, J. (2004). Exploring the use of blogs as learning spaces in the higher education sector. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 20(2), 232-247.