Classroom Blogging: two fundamental approaches
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!
Hi, you’ve got a great blog here! I find the ‘trajectory coach’ and ‘connectivist theory’ concepts utterly new but getting to see how the former links with learner’s autonomy and am about to explore the real application.
Comment by Czech TEFLer — October 15, 2005 @ 6:51 am
I really liked the conclusion to this exploration.
You mentioned the importance of modelling approriate use:
“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!”
Yes. I could not agree more. I think this idea of modeling is one that permeates all we do.
Specifically in blogging, let me toot my own horn a bit (well, not really, as if you read my blog you will see it wasn’t a total success) by referring to my own blog entry over my introduction of a course homepage/blog.
It is a tough one that requires, in my opinion, lots of pre-planning and pre-teaching around the area of appropriate use.
I am also, as you suggest, considering opening my own blog up for students to examine an example of ‘appropriate use.’ This, however, presents a problem, as that blog then becomes public property for my students to read up on my ahh…explorations. Case in point: my reflections on their reactions to the blog. Students would then have a chance to read those reflections. I actually posted that knowing in the back of my head that students would possibly be heading that way eventually.
Question: do you share your own blogs with students, or are they kept under your hat?
Comment by J.M. — October 21, 2005 @ 10:08 am
J.M.
Wow. There is a lot here. (And please forgive me for the lag in getting back to you.) What an interesting scenario. We need to model appropriate use of a blog. The best way to do this is to get a blog yourself and invite your students to follow it.
Interesting result: What happens when the blog you invite your students to visit, is the blog which holds your thoughts and your explorations around practice…practice which involves your students. They’ll likely figure out that you’re talking about them.
Well…what DO you do there? I think J.M. you mention somewhere, that maybe a more generic writing style could work. Like maybe not go into too much classroom detail, keep it more…theory based? I don’t know. I have a very similar situation going on here. I have been trying to evangelize and convert our teachers over to blogging, specially around professional development. Blogfolios.
The point is, many of our team do no have previous experience with blogging, and in many cases have just had a really hard time taking the idea onboard. Modeling has come up. But how? The blog you’re reading now, sometimes delve into the day-to-day happenings where I work. My students. The teachers I work with. I, like J.M., feel a little…awkward or reluctant in sharing the location of this site. So far I have kept it secret. Not because I ever say anything bad or outwardly negative about anyone on our teaching team…because I don’t. But at the same time, I feel that if I do opt to let our teachers in on this site, I’ll have to curb my thinking a little, and maybe leave some things unexplored that need - or should be visited.
On the other hand, a blog that is sanitized….would that fly?
Comment by Aaron Nelson — October 31, 2005 @ 12:03 pm
Using Poetry as an In-Class Writing Prompt
There are several ways teachers could use blogging as a course-tool in English classes. In a recent class, I used the poem “Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost as an in-class writing prompt before the class activities really began. It is interesting to …
Trackback by [The] English-Blog [.com] — February 28, 2006 @ 12:58 am