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I have many objections to super-large lecture sections (which, unfortunately, are my University's response to higher student enrollments) but probably my biggest gripe is that they provide a huge disincentive to have students write. Even with masters-level teaching assistants, and even if papers are short, I don't think any but the most masochistic professors would want to deal with grading for that many students. But one of the reasons that I have become so interested in Web 2.0 tools like blogs and wikis is that they have the potential to get students writing, but without the need for me to monitor every word. So for my 500-seat Principles of Micro class this fall, I plan to give students the option to write blogs or participate in discussion boards. Given the size of the class, my thought is that I will give students a choice of four semester projects: one option will be volunteering for Junior Achievement, one involves participating in a class blog about economics around the web/in the news, one will be a discussion board on economics in popular culture (music, movies, TV), and one will be more traditional problem set assignments (through Aplia). I am still trying to figure out how the blog and discussion board projects will work (like how often they will be asked to post, how I will grade their efforts, etc.), but I'm pretty excited and hopeful that this will be a great way to get students to start seeing economics all around them.
However, a few weeks ago, I was telling a friend about my plan. She asked how in the world I was going to keep up with all my students' posts, pointing out that even if the majority of students choose the JA or problem set option, I'm still likely to have well over a hundred students either posting to the group blog or participating in the discussion board.