In his article, “Blogging as Pedagogic Practice: Artefact and Ecology,” Marcus O’Donnell from the University of Wollongong, Australia cites the experience of a teacher who "fell out of love with blogging" as follows:
I have discovered that my honeymoon with blogs is over, mostly because there really is no room for spirited interaction between my students and myself in the blogs. Yes, I can require that they respond to another person’s blog, but one student said that, compared to a discussion forum, leaving responses to blogs felt more like leaving a note for someone who is out. The discussion forum, she said, felt more like an ongoing conversation which was more fun. (Remmell 2004)
Please post a short comment (100-200 words) of what you think about this argument, and whether you think this can/will keep you as a teacher from using blogs in your classes. Are blogs interactive enough? Do they foster communication between students, and/or students and teacher? What dangers would you see with blogging? Would you consider a class blog a valuable teaching tool, or an unnecessary technological burden?
Attention: put your NAME in your post when you post as "anonymous," because otherwise, I won't know who you are and can't give you points!!! ;-) If you can post under your name, you won't need to type in your name anymore, of course.
I have mixed feelings about the idea of using blogs in the classroom. I believe that they can be used effectively for students who do not feel comfortable speaking up in class but do in fact have valuable points to bring to the discussion. I also believe that since other members besides the class can be invited to interact with the blog (parents, authors, community members) the students may become more engaged and interested with the blog if they see that other members find school assignments fun to discuss as well. The reasons that I think blogs could be negatively used in the classroom is that students may not take it seriously since they are not physically being called on to answer. Also if the students are required to answer questions at home, it is harder to check for understanding because they have many other resources that they could pull information from. I also feel that students may not act professionally when responding on the blog and may cause problems with what they say to other classmates. If students acted professionally and actually participated with the blog the way the teacher expects, the blog could be a great discussion tool.
ReplyDeleteMallory Sellers Says...
ReplyDeleteAlthough I wish my mindset towards the blogging world was different, I am afraid to say that I very much agree with the quote; I have fallen out of love with blogging. Actually, I may have never been in love with the idea because I have had minimal experience with blogs, and the experience that I have had with it has been negative. I took an online education class here at the university where it was a requirement to blog every week. We were also given the requirement that we had to prove that we had read someone else's blog by commenting on it in our own. Basically, because the idea behind blogging was not naturally forming, the teacher forced it upon us. This was easy for students to get around because they simply cited someone's name within their blog, said "I agree", and then went on their merry way to answering the rest of the required questions. I love the idea of discussion, and I hope that my students discuss plenty within my classroom, but I do not think the desirable outcome is possible through a blog.
I do plan to use technology in my classroom, but I think there are better ways to implement technology other than using a blog.
Well! There is my "blog" discussing how I dislike "blogs", but I actually enjoyed writing that one. ;)
I understand this argument. Sometimes when blogging it can feel like you "are leaving a note" for someone to reply or comment upon. I personally have not had lots of experience with blogging. I completed blogs in Grammar 300, and that is my only experience blogging. I feel that in my personal classroom curriculum, I might experiment with blogging. As far as the blog lasting, I am not sure; Keeping the blog would depend upon student interaction. I feel like blogs are a different type of communication that could help back some teaching units. I am conflicted when trying to decide if a class blog is a good teaching tool, or an unnecessary technology idea. I can see both positive and negative aspects to blogging. I would like to try it in a high school setting, but I am not sure how well the blog would work in the long run.
ReplyDeleteThe interactivity of a blog will greatly vary depending on the student. Some students will check the blog frequently, but most students will only check the blog to complete their assignments. In this case, students may not respond to blog quick enough to generate a true conversation. The conversation could greatly suffer because of the amount of time that passes in between each response.
ReplyDeleteOne danger that I see from using a blog is students feeling as though they are being judged. Many students are worried about the quality of their writing being harshly judged by their teacher and their peers. Students may feel embarrassed by their writing and avoid using the blogs all together. However, using blogging may help students rise above this fear and want to share their writing even more. I would consider using blogs in my classroom and determine their effectiveness through the quality of answers and the participation.
Jessie Biggs
Hannah Toler:
ReplyDeleteI am not against blogs being used in the classroom, but I do not see myself using blogs in my future English classroom. I have used blogs in several college courses and did not enjoy them. It felt like it was busy work. I only read however many entries were required by the syllabus. I think that blogs could work if the students were interested and wanted to participate. If students are willing and excited to participate in the blogs then I think that they can foster communication between students and/or the teacher. On the other hand, if students are not interested in blogging, then I think that it is just another assignment students complete for points and not actual learning. I am not afraid of technology. I want to incorporate technology into my lessons and classroom as much as I can, but blogging is just not something I think I will use class time to do. If I were to have a class blog, I would probably not have it as an assignment, but a place for students to ask questions to each other or to me. I think that this is beneficial because if students have a question about an assignment, I can answer it quickly. Also if one student has a question about something the chances are other students have the same question. They can read the blog entry and comment as well. I would monitor the blog continuously to make sure that students were not abusing its purpose and participate when needed.
I have been trying to create a blog for class, but now the computer says I don't have access to the site. How awful that would be if I depended on that technology for a class lesson plan with a group of teenagers. To use the blogs in the first place, I would have to get time in the computer lab, which is fairly difficult. Then I would have to trust the technology would work, which it hasn't in this class very often. I'm afraid that this particular technology doesn't seem to be worth the time and trouble for me, as I agree with the above article on the superior use of time face to face. There are better ways to get students to write.
ReplyDeleteGrowing up in an era of synchronous communication, I do feel that blogs create an unrealistic conversation, if the conversation we, as teachers, are attempting to reconstruct is connected to a verbal interchange. However, the conversations that we focus on as teachers of literature and of writing are asynchronous, disconnected from the person or the alternative perspective. This written form of communication allows us to contemplate ideas before responding and think critically, not reactively. The written form of communication is powerful for this purpose: it relies on careful thought to be executed in a manner that can be understood.
ReplyDeleteConversely, the above argument would sound ridiculous to a high school student who has encountered a synchronous form of communication and who may become frustrated with a blog. However, most students do willingly communicate through an alternative form of blogging through Facebook-they post comments and wait for others to reply. What’s the difference? These Facebook posts are brief and concern topics about which students want to post.
I think that a classroom blog can be interesting, but that it needs to maintain a mixture of topics that interest students personally and those that interest them academically to establish a more authentic conversation. Some posts, in my opinion, need to serve as a means for communication about important issues to students, not just about the content area. For example, had this blog post concerned the strike, several students would have immediately posted their frustrations or their solutions. Perhaps, some students would disagree and argue and support their views. We feel a personal connection to the strike and are willing to discuss it, even in this asynchronous manner.
If students are involved in literature or issues that it promotes, I feel that blogs can be an effective tool for communication. While issues such as conflicting views and inappropriate responses may arise, these could become teachable moments for how to handle appropriately, those conflicts.
To be effective, blogs must have some further purpose to the instruction. The teacher cannot ignore them, nor allow the students to ignore them. Blogs must be integrated into the classroom and into the instruction so that students feel that they are not wasting time posting to an invisible and apparently deaf and dumb audience. If I, as a future teacher, can make the literature meaningful, the blog topics interesting, and the blogs themselves integrated, then I believe that blogs could be an effective teaching method that I might implement in my classroom.
-Elizabeth Hileman
I think Remmell has a valid point. When I leave a comment on a blog -- right now, for instance :)-- I do not assume that the owner of the blog will interact with this message; it's merely a note to which the owner can choose to respond, or not. I feel like this makes blogs much less valuable as a replacement for in-class discussion. Additionally, so much communication is non-verbal, and tone and body language as well as devices such as sarcasm do not translate well to text-only formats. This can inadvertently cause hurt feelings in a classroom. However, this does not mean that the blog has no place in school. Rather, blogs I think would be nice to supplement class discussions, extending the education beyond the classroom.
ReplyDeleteby Ryan Pudela:
ReplyDeleteI tend to value critical thinking and student-guided discussion. As such, I'm a little torn here. My personal experience as a student who has had to blog leads me to dislike blogs greatly. Yet, as a future teacher of English, I can see that blogging can create some great thought processes, leading to better writing. However, I feel that I will use this technique sparingly, since students tend to copy their peers and I would have no idea if an answer is actually genuine. The article confirms how I feel, namely that blogging is basically like playing phone-tag, or sending a string of e-mails back and forth. It takes the "bite" out of responses, since this style of discussion is not face-to-face.
I have never seen a class blog in action before this class. I can’t really say that this class blog is in action either. From the start I have asked the question, “What is the point?” and I have not yet been able to formulate a satisfactory answer. Where I could see a blog really working is as a communication tool between the classroom and home; that is the teacher and parents. Homework assignments could be posted and if a student were to miss a day they could access it without getting behind. Parents could see whether or not their student really had no homework that day.
ReplyDeleteAs far as a tool for students to see the writing of other students, I’m on the fence. I certainly believe in peer review and peer mentoring. I also like the idea of providing a refrigerator door for students to post their gold star work to. Beyond that I just don’t know. I have read a few blogs in my time, mostly travel diaries it seems, though some from teachers in South Korea. I can’t say that I see them as anyhow revolutionary. Further I don’t see how this tool is going to push the students to become better writers. If you assign them to write in the class blog it is still an assignment. I don’t see how they have been freed up from anything.
Aaron Vigardt
By Jourdain Hagen:
ReplyDeleteAs a young teenager, I developed a great appreciation for blogging. I like it simply for the fact that I could pour out my thoughts, and expect little feedback in return. However, in college, I took an English class that required the students to blog five times a month. This ruined blogging for me. I was forced to create my own blog and allow my classmates to interact with my blog entries. Thus, I felt like my independent writing was being violated. Instead of writing whatever I wanted, I felt myself writing in a way that would appeal to my classmates. Also, I felt like I didn't even know my classmates, which made the whole situation even more awkward.
Similarly, I agree with the article, because blogging does inhibit free thinking. It creates an environment restricted by writing. In a class discussion, someone may say something that most students find disagreeable, and that is okay because many students tend to be nicer in face to face conversation. However, once a post has been posted, students have the opportunity to ponder the post and reply in a way that they would not have in oral conversation. With the issue of bullying in the classroom becoming more and more serious, I do not think that blogs have a place in the classroom.
By Mikey Carnduff:
ReplyDeleteI believe that a discussion would be done better in a classroom rather than a blog. Blogging could be a good source of discussion since students get to observe what others are thinking about the same question and it can broaden their ways of thinking, but it would not be too efficient unless these topics discussed in the blog were still seen in the classroom. I also believe it is harder for the students to keep track about what they have to do for each blog. It seems that blogs tend to be unorganized and difficult to keep managed. Blogs are a good source of learning in the classroom if they are organized and the students are reminded many times about each time that they need to submit a comment to them.
By Diona Montgomery:
ReplyDeleteIn response to this argument discussing blogging, I agree with Rimmell. Blogging in my opinion is more about commenting on thoughts. It is where people can interact with one another in a discussion. However, I think that leaving a message for someone to view is not an ongoing discussion. The purpose of the blog is to promote communication that would be between people. When leaving messages, sometimes people may not return or may not comment. In one of my past classes, I had to blog for each assignment. I found the idea of blogging to be excited because I would get to voice my thoughts and opinions. When my class began to blog, there were very few comments or none at all on each person’s blog. Each time we would blog, I found it to be less and less effective in the learning process. It became more of writing an answer for the teacher to see instead of actually communicating with one another. Therefore, I do not feel that blogging is interactive enough for students to learn from one another or from the topic. They may be able to reflect or think critically about the topic. Blogging doesn’t foster communication in my opinion, because I think students would only really be talking to themselves. Students would begin to only comment on another person because they were instructed to. I don’t think there would be many issues or dangers with blogging if the topics were school relatable and the technology was up to date. In my future classroom, I do not see myself using blogging at all. I believe it really would be a burden for the students as well as me. I wouldn’t want to make the students do a task that was a not useful or beneficial as it concerns the learning environment.