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Blogging c0llectively

We are the English Majors' Weblog, a collective of five interns and one supervising instructorattempting to make clear what it means to be an English major in the new jagged, andchanging academic and career landscape: http://english.blog.wku.edu

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Blogging c0llectively

The English Majors' Weblog started as a project to encourage my university (WesternKentucky University) to develop a WordPress blog server on campus for anyone who neededthe platform to create academic resources for our community.

Encouraged by this initial effort I was able to convince my department head to create aninternship to expand the work of the blog beyond what my limited time could manage.

After two years I convinced my new department head to help create a collective internshipwith five undergraduates in major specializations ranging from creative writing toprofessional writing to secondary teaching. This is the first semester of collective blogging.

Our efforts can be described in much the same way that David Weinberger did in his bookSmall Pieces Loosely Joined--a Protean attempt to bring meaning to the complex identitycreation that is at the core of becoming an English major. We have tried to do that by

Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that's simple,beautiful and fun.By Terry Elliott

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mashing up, remixing, and connecting numerous free (if not entirely open) tools. The slidesthat follow try to describe them.

Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that's simple, beautiful and fun.By Terry Elliott

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Blogging c0llectively

Our first tool is our beehive hub, a WordPress site served by our university:http://english.blog.wku.edu

This is identity central and it is served on a daily basis with news, information, andconnections by our interns. What is most important about the connections is that they areevolving and being tested with tools like Google Analytics to see who is using what and whenand how long.

It is a powerful place to practice craft, to exercise one's voice, and to become deliberateabout what it means to be 'English-y'.

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Blogging c0llectively

The Google + community is a private one where we can speak, write, and ask questionsabout the problems of connecting our majors together. It is also the place where we storeand storify our institutional memory.

We are taking notes as we go about what works, what we need help with, and what issucceeding. We use it to encourage ourselves as writers, editors, social network managers,wordpress geeks, and google analytics wranglers.

We really are making it up as we go within the constraints of our mission and of the tools thatwe are accessing. Google + is helping us to establish ourselves as the beating heart of theblog.

It is also part of what we hope will grow into a vibrant and empathic crew who all know thescore and who know that creating this community is at the core of that 'score'.

Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that's simple, beautiful and fun.By Terry Elliott

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Blogging c0llectively

Hangouts on Air are part of our weekly prep meeting on Monday evenings.

1. Job roles are parsed. Everyone has a role as content provider and writer, but we also wearat least one other hat-marketer, editor, community manager, webmaster, analytics analyst.

2. We divvy up posts for the week and talk long terms news and posts.

3. We share screens, goof around with google tools, create common docs as well as sharescreens, bookmarks and tools.

4. And we record it all for absent members and for 'posterity'.

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Blogging c0llectively

Lino is just a place to post story ideas and to claim work. It is where the editor lives duringthe week. It is where others from outside the immediate community can suggest story ideas.

The workflow model is based on aJapanese productivity tool: the kanban.

Our digital corkboard is divided up into three columns:

READY DOING DONE

We put sticky notes in the 'Ready' column that indicate a potential post. If someone wants toclaim the story they put their initials on it and move it over to the "Doing" column. At anypoint others may add info to the sticky note or even ask to collaborate with the originalauthor. One recent use was to develop a series of interview questions in a series we are

Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that's simple, beautiful and fun.By Terry Elliott

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doing on all the advisors in the department.

When the work is posted then the sticky pad moves to the 'Done' column. If anything gets tocrowded we have an overflow corkboard. You can peel off the done sticky pads but the siteremembers what has been done and archives it. Nothing is lost in this slow motion cascade ofactivity.

Lino is free, but I purchased the pro version for just a few bucks a month and it is well worthit.

Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that's simple, beautiful and fun.By Terry Elliott

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Blogging c0llectively

One of our goals is to provide timely and newsworthy posts (Facebook and blog), tweets,instagrams, and newsletters to our majors, pre, current and post.

We trumpeted Cornel West's recent lecture and then followed up with a retelling afterward.We push writing workshops, classes, publishing opportunities, readings, and all matterstimely for English majors.

Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that's simple, beautiful and fun.By Terry Elliott

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Blogging c0llectively

We are working toward each interns not only working on one-off posts, but also on longerterm, weekly or bi-weekly columns that highlight important identity markers for majors ingeneral and personally important ones for the interns as well.

One of our goals is for all interns to begin using their own blogs and to develop the skills andmotivations to pursue those blogs after their internships are over.One of our goals is to get interns to promote their own work and the work of the blog inpublic ways.One of our goals is to help our interns develop digital rhetorical skills along with the ability tomanage their own WordPress blog.

Our overall goal is to get our interns to extend themselves, reach beyond their grasps, and tothen to use those skills and attitudes and mindsets in the world.

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Photo by KOMUnews

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Blogging c0llectively

The internship is as handy as a pocket on a shirt. It serves our university community at thesame time that it serves the needs of each intern. That's the plan anyway. Harold Jarchedivides the work of learning and research into three words: Seek, sense, share. The EnglishMajors' Weblog makes that abstraction into a concrete whole every day. The deliberatepractice of 'seek-sense-share' applies the powerful skills that all English majors have acquiredin their discipline in an overt and regular way. That is the genius of a collective weblog. Thepractice never stops and is always useful work worth doing.

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Blogging c0llectively

At the end of our semester together, the collective blog will take stock of what has beendone, what has been left undone, and. most important. what is left to be done.

1. Create a style manual for the blog for future internship collectives.

2. Create an informal consultancy of current and former interns who can show others how touse the same of similar 'tools loosely joined'.

3. Create marketing plans for specific segments and plans for expanding into areas thatserve the development needs of the department.

4. Create workshops or MOOCs for others who want to create their own collectives.

5. Create ebooks and other 'texts' to reflect on what they have done and where other might

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go in the future.

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Blogging c0llectively

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Blogging c0llectively

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Blogging c0llectively

Where will we go with this collective? We will connect in ways that we can only hint at rightnow. Our audience is, potentially, a larger one than we envisioned when we first started theinternship several years ago. At first we wanted to work with the current majors in ourdepartment. Now we know we have a mission to serve alums, major wannabees, pre-majors(middle and secondary learners), minors, graduate students, and the ever widening ripple ofstakeholders who represent the rather large galaxy of folk known as English majors especiallyalums and 'interested parties'.

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Blogging c0llectively

The Interns

Andria Nealis,Ashley Dyer,Kerr Beebe,,Kayleigh Brasher,,Tiffany Hughes,

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Weblog Supervisor:

Terry Elliott

Overall English Internships Supervisor:

Dr. Angela L Jones

English Department Head:

Dr. Rob Hale

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Blogging c0llectively

What an enduring crew including previous interns Seanna Wilhelm, Rachel Hoge, JoelBrinkerhoff, and office intern/jill of all trades, Ann Reagan.

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Blogging c0llectively

Special thanks to Dr Angela Jones for being the spark that brought the internship project tolife in our department and to Dr. Rob Hale who had the vision to see how the collectiveinternship might make a difference.

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Blogging c0llectively

None of this would have been achievable without the resources of the university, its blogservers, its IT resources, its intern services and its institutional imperative to advanceknowledge and skills. Thanks to WKU.

Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that's simple,beautiful and fun.By Terry Elliott

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Blogging c0llectively