To Blog or ... Yes, To Blog
Greetings everyone, from the anchorage of a mid-day, beautiful Saturday afternoon (though, I must admit, it's not the most secure of anchorages when you're on the relentless M-W-F teaching schedule; grading and class preps create a sense of urgency, even prior to what I hope will be a red wine-informed Saturday evening!). I did want to tell you all that we appreciated your thoughts on the role of the blog, aired 0ff-blog in your letters composed during last week's 540. As a writer and as an erstwhile scholar, I love the sense of emergence -- and especially the possibility of dialogue and workshopping -- offered by writing for the blog. I think eventually this will translate into pedagogical value, although I must admit my first couple of experiments with blogs in my literature courses have been marked by mixed results (if you're interested, you can see the blog-in-progress for my Multicultural British Literature class, or my blog last semester for my Literature and Music class; you'll encounter some positively terrific student articulations, but mostly you'll notice a lot of "Eric"s littered all over the place); they've helped me as a teacher and as someone interested in mining ideas that are only half-explored in class and in our reading, but I've not yet found the magical formula that will lead students towards moving my "voice" more into the background. It may be just a matter of waiting for students to get more familiar and comfortable with blogs. It may be that an even better technology awaits us around the corner. It may be that I need to lead them (force them?) there early in the semester, and then back off and hope the whole enterprise will grow. I don't know.
One thing I think I've realized is that there is a tricky line to negotiate between assigning blogging participation and letting the blog assume its own life and dynamism organically. The latter approach is both more desirable and more consistent with the spirit of the genre as it has developed over the past couple of years (especially in its main guise as a kind of public webbed journal), but it also means leaving our little creations (and teaching objectives) vulnerable to a kind of digital Darwinism. As for our Comp blog, I must say that I think your postings have in fact not been repetitive or mechanical in any sense; rather, they've been terrifically engaged, and have left this participant feeling that the 540 discussions have been enriched and almost overstocked with possible ideas to pursue and discuss. I wonder what kind of reading response in writing would not seem like something one did simply because "it has to be done." And this way we get an instant archive of teaching ideas and testimony as an added bonus.
But this a discussion to be continued; certainly we'll want to manage and nourish this blog in such a way that it makes you want to stop by and visit it from time to time, even daily, and makes you want to leave behind a few words of your own -- whether they be serious, exploratory, playful, frivolous, etc. Many of the Digital Writing Classroom teachers among us are using a reading from Ray Oldenburg's wonderful book The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons, and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community. Done right (I almost just typed "done write," which, of course, would also have been appropriate!), and with your continuing feedback, maybe our little blog can claim a place in Oldenburg's unwieldy but seductive title!
One thing I think I've realized is that there is a tricky line to negotiate between assigning blogging participation and letting the blog assume its own life and dynamism organically. The latter approach is both more desirable and more consistent with the spirit of the genre as it has developed over the past couple of years (especially in its main guise as a kind of public webbed journal), but it also means leaving our little creations (and teaching objectives) vulnerable to a kind of digital Darwinism. As for our Comp blog, I must say that I think your postings have in fact not been repetitive or mechanical in any sense; rather, they've been terrifically engaged, and have left this participant feeling that the 540 discussions have been enriched and almost overstocked with possible ideas to pursue and discuss. I wonder what kind of reading response in writing would not seem like something one did simply because "it has to be done." And this way we get an instant archive of teaching ideas and testimony as an added bonus.
But this a discussion to be continued; certainly we'll want to manage and nourish this blog in such a way that it makes you want to stop by and visit it from time to time, even daily, and makes you want to leave behind a few words of your own -- whether they be serious, exploratory, playful, frivolous, etc. Many of the Digital Writing Classroom teachers among us are using a reading from Ray Oldenburg's wonderful book The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons, and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community. Done right (I almost just typed "done write," which, of course, would also have been appropriate!), and with your continuing feedback, maybe our little blog can claim a place in Oldenburg's unwieldy but seductive title!
posted by Eric at 3:00 PM
3 Comments:
Eric wonders: "I've not yet found the magical formula that will lead students towards moving my 'voice' more into the background. It may be just a matter of waiting for students to get more familiar and comfortable with blogs. It may be that an even better technology awaits us around the corner. It may be that I need to lead them (force them?) there early in the semester, and then back off and hope the whole enterprise will grow. I don't know."
I have spent some time thinking about this, especially since I have two of my own blogs, which I struggle to update on a regular basis.
As teachers, I think the question is not "how" we use blogs but whether we use them. Given the various teaching/learning tools available to us as students/teachers, why would we choose a class blog? What goal(s) are we hoping to achieve, and is a blog the best (and most efficient) tool available to us to achieve these goals? Or are we just adding more work to our plates because technology can allow us to?
I tend to be suspect of the need to use technology simply because they exist. (Note the title to Eric's blog about blogs -- "To Blog or ... Yes, To Blog" -- which implies that not blogging is not an acceptable alternative. One can't help but wonder why?) Is there any evidence to suggest that blogs and blogging are better at achieving certain pedagogical goals than other strategies? Or are we just technomaniacs trying to incorporate the latest web-wizardry into our classrooms because, well, it's there?
I have yet to be convinced blogs are the best way to encourage dialogue and interaction in a class context. Yes, blogs have been incredibly popular "out there" in cyberworld, but in that context anonymous individuals self-select themselves and choose which blogs they will engage and how often. In reality, it is still largely a one-way means of communication: bloggers post and readers read, and then perhaps make a short comment or two. It is safe because it is anonymous, and it is handy for geographically disparate individuals.
But in a classroom context, we already have a personal relationship with our co-bloggers and so are not actively seeking out the anonymous social interactions that the web so generously supplies. We can use blogs, as I do, to allow students to "hand in" their class assignments to a place that is accessible not only to the teacher but also to others in the class. If they're interested, and have the time, students can then peruse the offerings. We can also use blogs (and other forms of web-based technology) to workshop writing.
But to have an ongoing "dialogue" becomes an onerous undertaking for anyone. It requires that students and teachers read as many as 20 lengthy postings, to which they might then reply, as might all their classmates, and on the process goes. That's a lot of work. If blogs are simply tacked on to other class requirements, as they often are, rather than replacing other, ostensibly less effective tools and strategies, then yes, workload becomes a problem.
I guess the real question is not whether blogs are valuable as teaching tools, but whether they are as efficient as other strategies that get us to the same place. Think about the pre-blog world. Did teachers ask their students to prepare a response to a prompt for each class, bring one copy for each of their classmates, have each student read each response, and then respond to one or more of the first-generation responses? And so on. No, because it takes a lot of time; it's not very efficient.
If the goal is for students to share ideas and learn from each other, then it might be more efficient to sit in a room with fellow human beings or read and then workshop their essays/responses, again together in a room. If the goal is to prepare thoughtful responses to readings or prompts, that's fine too. But to do both takes a lot of time to do well, and that needs to be taken into account when encouraging students to use blogs as a means of learning from each other.
In other words, what are we willing to give up (as teachers) and replace with blogs? Classroom time? Traditional writing assignments? Readings by experts outside the classroom?
Jeff
If they are causing one to close read titles, well, gosh, that just might be one of the plugs for blogs! Seriously, though, I have a different reading of my post's title, Jeff. Based on what I wrote, my sense is that my posting largely finds me in the ellipsis of my title. That is, I'm expressing personal doubts and uncertainties about the use of blogs in the classroom. So I would argue the body of my post does imply that "not blogging" is an acceptable alternative -- I mean, of course it is. I personally manage to emerge from the ellipsis, though, and to round out that title ("Yes, to blog") with the sense that, at this moment at least, I think blogs have much to offer; therefore, I'm going to continue to commit to them.
I think you raise good questions. And, yes, it will indeed be a problem (and you will no doubt encounter resistance) if you as a teacher are using them "simply because they exist." With almost any component of our pedagogies we have to be clear with ourselves and clear with our students as to why we are using it.
I don't know if there is any empirical evidence out there yet as to the traction of blogs in classroom work, but it's certainly not hard to make the theoretical case. At the most basic level, the internet (and the computer screen) put us in a new relation to writing, and it's our job to give students the kind of rhetorical flexibility they will need to manage that fact.
Beyond that, if they are incorporated and articulated well, I think blogs have the ability to (1) bring students into the process of invention in new ways as writers, and even promote (via the great power of the link) the associative logic of creative thinking; (2) create more student investment by helping them to get jazzed about the dynamic notion of audience, of the sense of publishing their work for a wider audience, and of sharing their work in a transactional way with their peers; (3) extend the opportunities to participate in class. It doesn't have to be the "best way" -- and let's face it, for many students the best way is not face-to-face interaction. My experience with blogs, with email, with listservs, etc., is that they can become a venue whereby we can bring a greater percentage of the class (including the shy students, sometimes the students from other cultures who are less inclined to engage in "argument" in the classroom, etc.) into the meaningful work of the class.
For me, then, it's not a question of what we have to give up by incorporating blogs -- it's what's added. That said, the growing pains will continue, even for me.
What about others of you who are using blogs? What do you have to add? Are you ambivalent about them? Are they energizing your class? Are they burdensome? Walker, where are you, my friend?!
Me again. If any of you are following this thread, you might be interested in Steven Krause's article on blogs in Kairos 9.1. Krause offers some personal testimony about using blogs in the classroom, and his ambivalence picks up some of the thoughts expressed by Jeff. He ultimately finds plenty of compelling (or at least hopeful) reasons for incorporating blogs, but he also argues that blogs are essentially "individualistic" rather than "collaborative."
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