Dr. John Collins

John Collins' Global News Analysis course is responsible for The Weave, a blog featuring under reported news stories from around the globe. John's students combat mainstream media by taking part in their own investigative journalism in an effort to bring less prominent news items to the masses. The Weave was inspired by similar projects such as Cal State Sonoma's Project Censored, and War News Radio at Swarthmore College.

Technical Details: The site itself was created largely by Tendayi Chakanyuka ('09) using the content management system Joomla. Tendayi majored in Computer Science and Economics at St. Lawrence and served as the blog's technical director upon taking the course. As far as student interaction with the blog, the interface has a small learning curve as it's similar to email and social networking sites students use daily.

Student Reactions: As John mentions in the video (right), students are apprehensive at first about their work being public. As the course progresses however, many students embrace contributing to The Weave, and some even stay on as contributors after they've completed the course.

Project Outcomes: Blogging with The Weave has transformed John's course from a traditional news analysis course to something that is incredibly dynamic and truly a Best Practice in both teaching and teaching with technology. Since 2006 the blog has seen several revisions and is currently maintained by Dr. Collins and an editorial collective of around a half dozen students.