Comments on: Blogs by students

By: Qingy

Qingy — Thu, 23 Dec 2004 22:21:32 +0000

OMG I’m signed up for this course =)

By: Clancy

Clancy — Wed, 22 Dec 2004 22:54:35 +0000

Eszter, I've used weblogs in my teaching for two years, and shared some of my reflections on the experience this semester, as well as all the writing prompts I gave my students, here if you'd like to see. I've also assembled a list of sources for using weblogs and wikis in writing pedagogy; maybe some of the work will be useful for you.

By: Jill

Jill — Wed, 22 Dec 2004 13:33:26 +0000

I’ve been using blogs for two years, in a course where students are supposed to learn web design and how to think about and communicate effectively on the web. Blogs are an obvious pedagogical tool for learning this. Quick summary:

You have to work to create a community. Have your own blog, link to good posts, model good teaching.
Requiring students to comment on each others posts is a good idea.
Some students will get it instantly, many won’t and need a lot of coaxing. In my experience, the majority WON’T get it if you simply expect them to blog at home. You need to give them specific exercises and to have them blog in class
Setting up and maintaining blogs is a pain. Lots of technical issues, and there’s the spam, and then what do you do after the semester? This year I’m having them use Blogger. It’s not ideal, but I’m not willing to do all the work. And there’s also something to be said for them setting it up all on their own. They own it. That’s good.
They can learn a LOT if this is done well. About 20% of my students have continued to blog their further studies, and seem to be getting a lot out of it. There was a lot of enthusiasm, and with support from you in the beginning, blogging together helps a class bond in new ways that they really enjoy.
Some of them will hate it. All the time. I figure that’s OK. Some students hate oral exams, or term papers, too.

There are quite a few papers about experiences with classroom blogging. Search Google Scholar, you’ll find em. Good luck!

By: PTJ

PTJ — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 19:38:20 +0000

Been using blogs in classes for about a year now. This summer I used one extensively in a summer study abroad course; it can be viewed at au-in-krakow.blogspot.com . I have also found them useful for my first-year World Politics course; I divided the class into groups of 3 or 4 and had them blog once a week, plus encouraged them to get into online debates. This was in lieu of the weekly journals I used to use; the students liked the interactivity better than the old system. Using one for my PhD philosophy of social science class next semester; feel free to check it out at conductofinquiry.blogspot.com .

By: Lisa Spangenberg

Lisa Spangenberg — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 17:14:05 +0000

In terms of FERPA, I encourage students to use pseudonyms. At the start of the quarter I ask them if they would rather be known to each other or just to me. I also make it clear that if someone does not want to blog, they can turn in hard copy instead. I think blogging works best if you give the students specific guidelines, prompts/questions to respond to, and encourage them to respond to each other. At first I thought it would be better if I didn’t actively participate in the blogging, but in fact it seems to be more effective if I not only read but I occasionally respond, albeit via asking questions. I also found that I needed to offer help setting up and making the initial post, via a couple of extra office hours, and that the students really appreciated examples of the kind of post I hoped for. I generally also talk about how to cite links and quote sources, and how to evaluate accuracy and fact-check. I also make my expectation about courtesy very very clear. I also find it helpful to refer to the blog, and to specific posts in class; this helps integrate their writing into discussion. Students often seize on the opportunity to use the blogs for peer review/workshopping of their papers as well.

By: Graham

Graham — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 16:06:49 +0000

Go, U Northwestern! Wish we had this when I was an undergrad!

By: catfish

catfish — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 14:44:53 +0000

This summer I taught an online class on post WWII US suburbanization and built the class around group discussion. I did not use blogs, but I did use the discussion board on WEBCT (the university’s course management system). Because I wanted to replicate the blog experience, I required each student to write one 250-500 word post and comment on two other people’s posts each week. The grading was a nightmare. I finally began making summary remarks at the end of every week. As the term went on, I ended up dividing the students into groups so that they only had to read five posts a week from their peers. The discussion was pretty good. Many of the arguments that people tried out showed up later in their papers. I found that the discussion seemed to work better when I asked questions that required students to apply what they learned from the readings rather than commenting on them. I will definitely use online discussin in the future, even for on campus classes. I’m interested to see if older students have problems with blogging software. Even with our easy to use course management system, I still had to do a fair amount of technical troubleshooting.

By: Laura

Laura — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 14:08:35 +0000

My husband, a computer science prof, and myself, a composition instructor, are teaching a blog course in the fall and will have our students keep individual blogs, but we are also thinking about having a group blog. This is a freshman writing course so we hope to use the blogs as a way to practice writing for an audience. But we also hope they will get a better sense of the interconnectedness of the blog world by being directly involved in that world. I’ll be interested to see what you come up with for your course. I do hope you’ll update here.

By: des von bladet

des von bladet — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 10:41:36 +0000

Speaking as a social science student (which I now am hoorah) I would absolutely hate this, even though (or perhaps because) I blog anyway. Yer man Holbo uses blogs for teaching where he posts, and there is some kind of commenting requirement; I would hate that much less. Alternatively a group blog for the class might be OK. My objection, I think, to a required individual blog is that a blog is such a delightful place to do just precisely and unconstrainedly what you like that the idea of being told what to write about is anathema to me. But of course, it is not part of an instructors job to do only things that students like, and I am not actually your student in any case.

By: eszter

eszter — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 03:42:20 +0000

Thanks to everyone for the various suggestions. Good point that I should think about when posts/comments should be due in order for me to have enough time to incorporate them into class discussions. Regarding the prof's questions about motivation for this method, see the paragraph starting with As to why require blogs in the first place, here are some reasons. I have received emails from a few people with additional pointers, here are some:
Plans for Collin Brooke's upcoming course that will also require students to maintain blogs.

Alex Halavais's reflections on his course that was taught completely on a blog.
Some thoughts by Jill Walker on how using blogs in a course is different from asking students to keep journals and other methods. She also discusses some of the challenges posed by the method.

By: martin

martin — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 23:56:29 +0000

I tried a typepad blog in a molecular biology course last year and I plan to do so again this year. I divided the class into 9 groups of 2 and, in the second half of the semester, two groups were required to present a research paper on the blog. Each group had to post 4 entries during the week: an introduction; two on the experiments and one summary post. Other students were required to post one or maybe two comments per topic. The final blog entry was supposed to summarise the topic and the discussion. Some students had trouble with the technical aspects – mostly posting images. It was a lot of reading for me and I did have to get the questions started at first but as students became more comfortable they did ask each other questions – not always the best thought out questions, but questions. On the whole it was a worthwhile experience. This year the class looks as though it will be smaller so I may be able to get the blog assignment process started earlier and have onbe topic a week. That will be easier on me and my students.

By: liberal japonicus

liberal japonicus — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 23:43:47 +0000

Both I and a colleague of mine ask students to blog, but it is in an ESL context. I’m also involved in an effort to set up a (non-student) group blog (though I’m just writing, not doing any of the management). If you are just using blogging as a way of making e-journals, you need to make sure that students who are not as technologically competent don’t get frozen out by the software. If you are trying to promote blog like discussion, individual blogs are going to be a huge problem because of the amount of reading the students will have to do. My colleague is using B2Evolution, which has a number of points (including the option of collecting all of the linked blogs into on super blog) I’m using Blogspot because students are photoblogging and the combination of Flickr and Blogspot offered the easiest solution.

By: Backword Dave

Backword Dave — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 22:02:08 +0000

Somewhat off topic, but has Word Press become the new flavour of the month? I understood that it was harder to get to grips with than MT and therefore less suited to beginners. Can I also make a prediction? An earlier thread discussed whether there were any women contributors to CT (and I’m aware that Eszter is a woman), and the clear gender imbalance in posting. I’ll hypothesize that female students will write fewer and shorter posts, even though female students usually perform better in continuous assessments. A pedagogic benefit might be that blogging encourages writing in the vernacular as opposed to disciplinary jargon. Politics and the English Language has lots of advice for bloggers and indeed anyone writing for the laity. Most of the sociologists I’ve read frown on plain prose. That’s their loss.

By: paul

paul — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 21:03:35 +0000

I don’t know how well WordPress takes to multiple weblogs (the information I have read is inconsistent). Drupal might be an option, since it sets up weblogs for users as they open accounts and allows for commenting and a “front page” where posts can be promoted to appear (peer review, indeed).

By: the prof

the prof — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 19:29:38 +0000

Eszter, I don’t see any mention in your post or in the syllabus about what the blog is supposed to accomplish, pedagogically. Is this a peer-writing forum, where students will read and evaluate each others work? Is this a way for you to have more direct interactions with the students (that can’t be, since there will be 40 separate blogs, and surely you’ll be the only one who looks at them even some of the time)? Or is this just a whiz bang tool to spice up the course? (Not that I necessarily object to whiz bang tools, but sometimes they take too much effort and distract from the course.) And I suppose more importantly, you are a junior faculty member, so why are you proposing a course that may have you investing time and energy into teaching students technical skills that are better taught by the computer support people? I taught an Internet and Politics course once, where i had students maintain a webpage dedicated to the topic (this was way back in the days when maintaining a webpage was a new and exciting frontier). The course went very well but was VERY labor intensive for me. If I was a senior colleague, I think I’d tell you not to offer such a course until after tenure, unless you can guarantee either having a dedicated (and technically sophisticated) grad or ugrad TA, or significant support from the IT staff at NWestern.