Teacher in Development

Dekita.org: Classroom Blogging: two fundamental approaches

All I can say is wow. What a great article. Aaron Campbell explores the same issues I’ve been wrestling with. I’m working with our team of teachers to get them into the brave new world of blogging for purposes of Professional Development.

All I can say is that it ain’t easy.

Big question: How do you encourage people (in my case, English teachers) to blog? What is the best way to motivate them?

Campbell’s article touches on a variety of issues, but the most interesting to me was around increasing reader participation.

You know it’s totally odd how many teachers approach all things new. Specifically: Things blog and technology related. As J.M. puts it in his comments from a tech conference he attended, most teachers adapt a “head in the sand” approach. There seems to be great…maybe not fear, but perhaps unwillingness around this stuff.

The unwillingness of busyness.

So the article explores two methods of encouraging participation: “Crack the whip” vs. student centered motivation.

Crack-the-whip:
Forced participation as students are graded, or will be graded on blog participation. There are also regular assignments and projects - assigned by the teacher - that students must complete in order to pass the course.

Problems: More than likely, the fun will get squeezed right out of this approach. They’re doing the blogging for a grade and may, or may not see the fun side, see the potential for networking, learning, exploration, connections etc. that could be made. The almighty grade is king.

Student Centered Approach:
The teacher basically steps away from the vehicle and the blog becomes whatever the student wants it to become. They blog for enjoyment. I will quote Campbell directly because…he just explains it so well:

“The teacher sees herself as a facilitator of a process of creation, not as an enforcer of behavior. She makes no demands on quantity and does everything she can to inspire her students to blog through her own examples, stories, enthusiasm, and passion. Qualitative and reflective self and peer evaluation are both encouraged and valued; and students are given considerable, if not complete, control over the pace, content, and direction of their blogging activities. Whether or not students will enjoy blogging, see the potential value of it, and continue blogging on their own after the course is finished is the primary consideration.”

My reflections:
Like Campbell points out, I think the middle ground is the safest place here. We cannot control the blogging experience so much that the fun dies, and students merely work for a grade. The real value of blogging, I think, is lost to this approach. It may look good on report cards, but we likely fall victim to joyless, powerless, exercise. Thou shalt not solely rely upon this method!

But, it is not totally evil either. I think there needs to be some sort of control. Students, I think, need to know that what they’re doing will matter for future evaluation. I think if we swing the other direction, 100% towards the student centered approach, where it’s all up to them 100% of the time, we’ll fall into another trap: Directionlessness.

We’re trajectory coaches. We do need to influence, and not just follow a “hands-off” approach in class - even in a student centered classroom.

There does need to be some, perhaps lite, control, though those controls could also be very much created by and centered around the student.

I really like Campbell’s approach to blogging in the classroom. He unites the best of both worlds:

“Until now, my approach has been to design assignments that mimic the activity of a self-directed blogger: choosing a topic to write about, using social networking tools and tags to find other bloggers, linking to those bloggers in the posts, linking to resources for further reading, connecting ideas and expressions of emotions to images and photos, following up on comments in future posts, etc.”

Encourage Self-directed blogging. (Love that!)

1. Students choose topic to write about. - Perhaps following a theme that you need to be following in class.
2. Use social sofware and keywords to link to others who are talking about the same thing.
3. Link to, and comment on those newly found resources. Students create their own content based on what they learned.
4. Following up on comments.

Really important idea: Trajectory coaches DO have a role and place in the classroom. They need to exert influence! Around blogging in the classroom, we need to model best practices around blogging, social software, photo sharing etc.

That means, TRAJECTORY COACH: GET THYSELF A BLOG! SHARE IT!