An Education in Blogging

Blogging has come a long way since the early days, back when I had to define the word for anybody curious about my time-consuming hobby. Students in Brown's Continuing Education program can now study the medium in a classroom setting:

In this course, participants will create and launch their own blog. Together, we will look at successful blogs on different themes, and discuss how the writers create an audience, how they cultivate a blogging voice, how they elicit comments from their readers. Whether you would like to use a blog to promote a business, to connect with others in your community, or simply to chronicle your days, this course will help you make your first foray into the blogosphere. In six weeks, we will go from the nuts and bolts of blogging software to the art of writing online. Students should have access to a computer with an internet connection.

The course has its own blog, naturally, and I'm happy to see that Anchor Rising made its blogroll. If any students wish to have artistically rendered avatars for their posts, I know a guy...