Dear Class:
To date, upwards of eight million American adults
publish blogs, which are read by some 32 million people. With such
a broad readership, blogs can be powerful tools in the workplace. As a
result, blogging in the workplace has
become a common practice that offers many benefits. According to a study done
by NYU Stern Business School in 2011
"blogging in the workplace increases knowledge sharing. More employees are
likely to have access to the same information and be able to bounce ideas off
each other" (Ghose). Additionally, Ghose found that "when
organizations permit leisure blogging, it positively affects the writing and
sharing of work-related blog posts and creates opportunities for strengthening
employee networks." Research supports the use of blogs in the workplace
for the good of both the corporation and the employees.
As this is a course which emphasizes Technical and Workplace
Writing, it is only proper that we, too, employ blogging as part of our writing
experience. We will create blogs in class using Blogger.com. The format
and topic of each individual blog will be determined by the student; however,
the blog must cover some technical area of engineering. Over the course of the semester, students will update their blog
weekly. At the end of the semester, individuals will give presentations on
their blog and discuss what they have learned about their chosen career through
blogging and the value of blogging. The weekly blogs (ten in total) must be academic
in nature, discuss timely matters, and make intellectual reference to an
article/ another blog/ or a media site. The recommended blog post length is
200-300 words.
We will use one class period to set up Blogger accounts and
start blogging! Your weekly blog posts will be done as homework due each Friday
by 10 pm.
JM
(This post is 300 words- not counting greeting)
Works Cited
Ghose, A. (2011). "Blogging in the workplace has
value." Experience: Faculty& Research
NYU Stern Webpage. http://www.stern.nyu.edu/experience-stern/faculty-research/uat_024448
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