apcampbell

Well, I finally managed to get my students at Ryukoku University signed up with weblogs at Livejournal. 
They all seem pretty excited at the idea of being able to communicate
with people from different parts of the globe.  It was quite a
chore getting them to sign up though.  More than half the students
in both classes didn’t have an active email address needed to activate
the Livejournal account; many of them use their cell phones for
email.  So we first had to get everyone a Yahoo! Japan ID and then
use that to register at Livejournal.  After that, we had to go
back to Yahoo! mail to follow the Livejournal activation link and then
each student had to copy their blog URL and email it to me to that I
could locate their site, grab the RSS feed and file it in my
reader.  Sounds simple, right?  Ha!  It took more than
90 min.  Some of the students didn’t even know how to open the
browser and type in a URL, much less copy and paste.  Of course,
this wasn’t news to me, as I’ve been working with similar students for
several years now.  The difference in computer experience between
these students and their Western peers is striking, and it still
surprises me.  Anyway, they’re just getting started at this, but
you can check out their links at The New Tanuki.  I’m sure if you left a comment, it would be well received.  I envision them blogging like crazy and building up a friends list by the end of the year.  Wouldn’t that be great for them?