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Blogs are a hot topic in academia. A search on "blog" in the "Chronicle of Education's" Web site returns nearly two hundred articles, covering such topics as the dangers an impolitic blog can do to an institution's leaders (Read, 2006) or the blogger's career (Tribble, 2005) and the mutual use of blogs by instructors to lambaste students (Lipka, 2006) and vice versa (Bartlett, 2005). Just as journalists think of blogging as a form of journalism (Grossman, 2004) and young women view blogs as a form of diary (Gumbrecht, Nardi, Schiano, and Swartz, 2004), the archives of the "Chronicle of Higher Education" show that many people in academia view--and judge--blogs as forms of academic production or a vehicle for scholars to become public intellectuals. In this article, the authors discuss the use of blogs in higher education, including how students and instructors use blogs, the value of blogs in this setting, and privacy and security implications. They conclude with information on how the University of Minnesota library system has implemented a blogging program called UThink to enhance its services. (Contains 1 table.)

Between 2007 and 2011, a comprehensive review of the literature was conducted to identify the usefulness of educational games and simulations in developing and evaluating the competency of public health professionals to prepare for, respond to, and recover from emergencies. This article presents an overview of the literature related to the use of games and simulations in education and training, summarizes key findings, identifies key features of gaming simulation design for educational effectiveness, and suggests that use of these emerging teaching and learning strategies be considered in the development of a comprehensive approach for creating and evaluating competency.