The Interactive Classroom: Mark Thoma

Thoma's 'Economist's View' blog enriches the curriculum--and attracts the best minds in the business

Joyce Winslow
jwins@uoregon.edu

When Mark Thoma first launched his economics blog in the spring of 2005, he envisioned having a few stimulating exchanges with perhaps ten of his peers. To his dismay, in a matter of weeks he was getting emails from leading economists all over the world, being quoted in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, and engaging in public discussions with such heavyweights as Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson, Harvard's Greg Mankiw, UC Berkeley's Brad DeLong, and Princeton's Paul Krugman.

Today Thoma's blog, Economist's View (http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/), attracts more than 10,000 daily visitors worldwide and is rated one of the top five economics blogs by blog tracker Technorati. Other rating agencies place Economist's View consistently in the top ten blogs in its class internationally. And leading economists who have engaged Thoma in online debates--a process that often attracts the comments of many others in their field--say it's "like being in a seminar room with some of the smartest people on the planet." (See "Blog!" by Bruce Bartlett, National Review Online, April 17, 2007.)

Despite his sudden celebrity, Thoma remains modest, almost self-effacing­--a down-to-earth professor dedicated to creating a stimulating intellectual forum and eager to share the wealth of ideas with his students.

Early on, Thoma saw the value his blog could have for students who wanted to expand their knowledge of economic theory and issues of the day. In addition to discussions with leading economists, Economist's View offers a comprehensive digest of major daily economic news and commentary culled from a variety of media sources.

Another plus for students: Thoma regularly records and posts videos of class lectures on his website, making it easier for students to review material or catch up on lectures they may have missed. For the viewer, it's very much like being in the front row of the class.

Thoma posts these videos in a variety of formats so that they can be viewed directly with standard media players such as QuickTime, RealPlayer, or Windows Media Player. Students can also download videos onto their iPods, laptops, or whatever networked device is most convenient. Google videos and downloaded videos can be paused and replayed at will, allowing students to review selected material. Thoma also posts study aids such as practice questions for exams and interactive quizzes that allow students to test their comprehension of the material.

Since introducing his blog to his classes, Thoma has noted a definite improvement in students' grades. "I think the blog really made a big difference," he says. "The daily blog especially has made a difference in the way I interact with my class." Thoma now begins each class with a discussion of a blog posting that relates to the current economy. "We discuss what it means and how it relates to the current material we are studying. I think that's the favorite part of class for a lot of students. It has also forced me to be much more current on world economic events…Students really like to have the material relate to actual world events, so this has been very helpful on that score."

Another unexpected bonus for Thoma: fewer email queries from students. "It's really cut down on my email," he says happily.

Thoma notes that the actual mechanics of setting up a blog and posting multimedia material was not difficult in and of itself, but maintaining it has been extremely time consuming. In two and half years, he has not missed a single day of posting. In addition to his video podcasts (each of which takes nearly six hours to process and upload), Thoma posts four to five items daily that reflect news and commentary from major media sources and respected economists--much of it gleaned from RSS feeds from the 140 economics blogs to which he subscribes. Thoma hopes that for many, his blog has become a trusted source of information, "serving as a sort of filter that weeds out the trash and presents articles of quality." Maintaining that quality and keeping that trust takes dedication and hours and hours of work.

Has blogging taken over his life? When confronted by this question, Thoma looks a bit rueful and admits that time spent on blog research and posting has taken a toll on his garden. An obvious plant lover, Thoma uses a photo of his patio in bloom as a screen saver, and his office window overflows with succulents--all looking remarkably healthy. "But succulents don't require much care," he laughs.

Overall, Thoma feels his investment in Economist's View has been well worth the effort, and many of his students wholeheartedly agree. Below, some of the students enrolled in Thoma's upper-division Monetary Policy and Evolution of Economic Ideas courses share their reactions to the blog and talk about how it benefitted them personally (see "Course blogs: the student perspective").