What is this and why are you making me read it?

Video Editing Students,
For years you have been asked to "participate" in class discussions. For a few of you this comes naturally, as you always have opinions and like to share them. That's half the battle, though listening to what others say is just as important. However, some of you have the listening end down, but might be a little more shy about talking in class or are just so patient that someone is always talking over you when you try to share your ideas. Thus, giving everyone the opportunity to respond to different topics in a blog is one way to make sure everyone has the chance to really be part of class discussions.

Another problem, particularly with our class, which only meets a couple days each week and where we usually spend class time working on projects, is that there is little time to actually discuss things. A blog allows discussion to extend beyond class time. That means you should have more time to be creative and bring your ideas to life in your videos, while I can still make sure that you are learning new things.

If this works the way I expect it to, then we will all be able to post questions for the class and respond to topics that I or your classmates post. Initially, I would like this to be for our own private discussion, but if there are others who you would like to share our ideas with, then we can open the forum up to the public.

So, is this a sneaky way of assigning homework? Well, sort of, but I assume that since you chose to be in this class that you have an interest in video and really want to learn about it. Putting in a little extra time now could pay big dividends for you down the road.

Now, let's start "talking".