Curious about Google+? My students are too. They’re compiling responses to reports about the new service this semester in the class blog: comUq: The Google+ Project. The blog is becoming a rather nice resource of impressions about other tech blogs’ Google+ reportage and even some of their first-hand experiences. Check it out.

The comUq blog is one of my new trials of portfolio-based assessment items. My goal this time was to get students engaged in assessment activities that are close to what they might do professionally. In this case, since these are largely communication students, they are reading and writing technical reportage, for a real audience, about a communication technology subject that is absolutely cutting edge. So they are generating actual news, not simply writing tired academic papers. The idea is to give the students a real motive to write something that they would be willing to show others, including potential employers. They’re still working on personal style, linking, developing their analytic and argumentative skills, but I have to say that I’m very happy with how the site is developing.

My hope is that the students find this to be a more relevant assessment for the purposes of this course and take some skills on to other courses and professional life. I also hope that the comUq blog itself continues through time to become an actual resource about Communication technology issues each semester COMU2002 is run, but possibly (hopefully) on an ongoing and wider basis in this and other subjects as the students move through Communication majors/programs.