A Presentation to the Faculty
Curriculum Innovation Center, Houston Community College Central and
Northwest Colleges. February 24 and March 3, 2005.
Blogging for Beginners: Enriching Your Classrooms with a New Technology
Lately the airwaves in education have become abuzz with talk of blogs and blogging. Educators far and wide are experimenting with these tools in various capacities. Some are using them as a way to communicate to a readership interested in a particular field or area of study. Some libraries are experimenting with using blogs as a way to provide reference service or to keep patrons up on new programs or services. Some educators are merely posting their classroom experiences as a way to blow off steam. Some, however, are actually starting to incorporate blogs into their classes as a pedagogical tool, and are experimenting with new ways that this emerging technology can enrich the classroom experience for them and their students. It is this latter use that will be the focus of this presentation.
To understand how blogs are being used, it is important to get a solid grasp on the background of blogs and blogging, and to understand a few very basic things about them. We don't need to be experts in XML or RSS to create and use blogs effectively, but a look at their background will be beneficial.
What this presentation will take a look at, then, is as follows:
- A few definitions and examples
- A quick history
- Differences between blogs and your standard web page
- Instructional benefits
- Asignment Ideas / Examples
- Brainstorming
And lastly, you can view one of Ruben Duran's flash tutorials on how to create blogs in the HCC Learning Web.
If you've already read Blogtastic! then a lot of this will sound familiar. If you'd like, you can skip right to the instructional bits.
Definitions:
First of all, it's important to understand what a blog is. Defining a blog is relatively simple, though understanding what it is can be a little more challending. In its most basic sense, a blog is a communication tool. It is a regularly updated web-based journal. A blog can be maintained by one person, or a team of people, small or large. Generally speaking, and on its best day, a blog is dedicated to a specific topic or area of interest. These areas of interest can and do vary widely. These can be:
- Personal Diaries
These are far and away the most common type of blog, and probably the least useful! - Corporate
Many businesses are starting to use blogs to communicate new services to customers. Google, for example, launched a blog last year. - Academic disciplines and professions
You can find bloggers in many fields writing online daily. - Current events / politics
These are also a very common type of blog and are the kind that have been making the most news lately for reasons we'll touch on in a minute.
There are blogs on pretty much any topic you can imagine – and some you probably don't want to imagine – both scholarly and otherwise.
Quick History:
(For a slightly more in-depth summary of blog history, check this out.)
The term "web log" was probably first coined in 1997. The first blogs that made their way into the world were evolved from Usenet groups. Instead of posting information on electronic bulletin boards, people started putting that information up on web pages. The earliest blogs were a way of sharing links with a community of readers that might be interested in the same things you were. A blogger would read an article, link to it from his or her blog and maybe make some comments on the content of that link. A lot of current blogs are still in the same vein, though more and more are sources for more original content.
Then in 1999, things started to shift. The term "Blog" was coined, and that same year, Blogger.com was launched. Blogger is a site that allows luddites and technophiles from all over the world to generate blogs in a matter of minutes. Many other companies followed suit, and in their wake, blogs began popping up everywhere and on every topic imaginable.
Blogs got a major boost in the months following the attacks of September 11, 2001, and they have recently been recognized as a major force in modern journalism. For example, some bloggers were invited, as credentialed members of the press, to cover last year’s Democratic and Republican National Conventions. People are starting to use blogs as an alternative to a mainstream media obsessed with not offending the masses, and therefore prone to sugarcoating all of its messages. Some blogs have a wider readership than some of the larger newspapers in the nation.
Differences
So then what's the big deal? What makes a blog different from your average web page? There are a handful of ways in which a blog differs from a standard web page, but they're not exactly visible. A snapshot of a blog page looks a lot like any other kind of web page. However, it's the way a blog changes over time, and the technology and functionality underneath them that really make them unique.
- It’s a web LOG, not just a web
PAGE
Just as a ship's log changes regularly, so does a web log. The point of these things is that they show regular postings. A blog, when properly maintained, is not static! - Easy to create
With just a few clicks of the mouse, almost anyone can get a good looking and completely functional blog up and running in a matter of minutes. - Even easier to update
Once you have your blog established online, publishing new posts is as easy as sending an email. - Reverse chronological ordering
Posts are listed in reverese chronological order, making blogs user friendly in that the most recent posts are easily found by readers. There is no site searching when you want to see what's been added! - Comments sections
Most blogs allow for reader interaction and community building through the use of comment sections. Any visiting reader can click and comment on a blog post - there's no need to be registered, and it's instantaneous. The blogger - and other readers - can then read and respond to comments, creating an interactive dialogue. - Syndication
Not all but most blogs are syndicated. For our purposes today, all you really need to understand about that is that it means that you can keep up with several blogs together in one place using a feed aggregator. For more on syndication, check this out. The demos will also give you a better idea of how syndication works.
If you're not familiar with blogs, it's now probably a good idea for you to check out some blogs and look at the various components of them.
If you'd like a guided look at blogs, view this demo. It will also give you a peek at an aggregator.
If you're the freewheeling type, go ahead and visit The Distant Librarian for a look at a blog. This one, as the name implies, focuses on the provision of library services to distance education students. Notice the order of the posts, the frequency of the posts, and the comments sections under each post.
Instructional Uses
Okay, so now we turn to the meat of the matter: Why and how would you, the teaching faculty, use blogs in your classroom?
Why?
Blogging can contribute to your students' academic development in several ways, some more obvious than others.
- Novelty Factor
Chances are, your students will get a kick out of blogging if your assignments are in keeping with the somewhat anarchic nature of the blog as a free-form writing space. Higher student enthusiasm often means better outcomes - Encourage Technological Literacy
The ability to navigate web-based environments if becoming more and more important for our students. Many of our students will already be familiar with so doing, but for those that aren't, this might be the biggest favor you do them! - Encourage LITERACY literacy
Our common sense tells us that the more students read, the better they will write. Also, the more they write, the better they write and read. If blogging can get your students writing and reading even just a little bit more than they normally would, that might then be reflected in improvements in writing and reading ability. - Build community
Giving students another, less formal space where they can exchange ideas can lend itself to more interaction between students. No matter how much you try to encourage students to participate in class, there will be some that are reticient merely because they're intimidated by the classroom environment - I know, because I was one of them! But get me outside the classroom and I wouldn't shut up! - Manage discussion across multiple sections
If you teach several sections of the same class, a blog can serve as an online space where students from all sections can all exchange ideas. This can allow the best and brightest of your students to feed off of each other and encourage each other’s learning paths regardless of what sections they're in.
How?
This of course is the most challenging aspect of things. How do you incorporate blogs into your classroom? How can you utilize the unique nature of blogs to actually make your class more valuable to your students?
How you implement blogging will depend on the kind of course you're teaching and what you hope to achieve with each assignment. It's usually a good idea, however, to start out with assignment types that are familiar - both to you and to your students. This allows you to use a new tool in a familiar setting. Let’s take a look, then, at four familiar types of assignments that instructors have been adding a blog twist to.
- Reading response / Journaling
- Project portfolio
- Conversation Starters
- Peer critique
Reading response / Journaling
Many faculty already ask students to turn in brief weekly or biweekly essays on a given reading or recommended topic, or on any topic. This can very easily be converted into a blogging assignment. Students, instead of turning in their responses to the instructor, post them in a public space where other students can read them.
Project portfolios
In classes that have a large term paper or final oral presentation, some faculty have had students post their project progress in blog format. This allows students to take online notes of examined sources (sort of an informal annotated bibliography), post thoughts along the way, etc, and allows the faculty and other students to monitor their progress and contribute ideas or suggest directions that the student may not have thought of. As the paper due date approaches, students can turn to the blog to find a record of their thoughts over the course of the semester to help them synthesize information into a coherent final project.
Conversation starters
Faculty can ask students to post one or two “talking points” in response to a coming week’s topics. Students can blog a few questions that they have about the topics to be discussed, and the instructor can then use those to guide discussion, calling on students to bring up their questions for the class to consider. Also, one approach might be to have students take time in class to blog on a topic for 10 minutes or so, and then let that serve as the springboard into a livelier discussion. These approaches allow students some much needed time to find the words to express themselves before class and can therefore create more enthusiastic discussions.
Peer critique
This is something that actually bridges all of the assignment types, because of the way blogs are built. Most blogs have a comments section enabled on them, and students can use that to comment on anything that the instructor or their peers write. This opens up discussion in a lot of ways that may not otherwise happen. Requiring your students not only to write posts, but to comment on the works of their peers allows for not just the presentation of ideas, but for a dialogue to open up.
Avoiding Common Pitfalls
As you start considering the possibilities for how you can use these in your classroom, you might want to think about some simple ways you can avoid having your class blogs be technology for technology's sake. Here are a some simple tips you might want to keep in mind:
- Know it!
Practice before your leap. There's only one thing worse than getting yourself in over your head, and that's bringing other people down with you. Make sure you know how your blog interface (The Learning Web, Blogger, etc) works before pitching it to your students. - Organize!
Plan how your blog will work before you create it. While most blog interfaces will allow you to make changes to your blog structures along the way, knowing what you want up front will save you time and probably a lot of headaches, too! - Link it!
You should make a link for each of your blogs from a central place, like your Learning Web homepage so your students can easily access them. They have enough to remember in the content of your class - don't make them have to memorize the address, too! - Prepare them
Spend time showing your students around the blog before you require them to post/comment to it. Make sure your instructions are clear and that your students know what they're being asked to do and that they are comfortable doing it. - Public awareness
Remind students that they are posting in a public forum and that anyone can read their posts. This is particularly important if you are asking them to journal for your class. They may or may not want to self-censor, depending on the tales they have to tell. - Engage them
Require regular participation on the blog and tie blogging to student grades to insure interaction. Some faculty are generally including blog posts as a portion of a student's participation grade, while others are assigning point values to each post. - Remember freedom!
While some restrictions are absolutely necessary for maintenance purposes, it's important to remember that the blog is seen as a less formal writing space, and that this is a part of its appeal. Don’t pose too many limits or restrictions – you’ll take the fun out of it! - Encourage dialogue
Just because it's easy to respond to peer posts doesn't mean that students will automatically do it. Require students to respond to each other on the blog and in the classroom. Some instructors are requiring one original post on a topic and then one or two comments on peer posts. - Incorporate it!
Bring the blog into class by using posts as a springboard for discussion. Call on students to expound on particularly interesting posts.
Categories and other considerations
When you do start planning your blog(s), you'll want to think long and hard about the best format for you. How many blogs will you need? One per class? One for each student or group of students? Where will you host your blogs?
Also, the Learning Web and some other blogging interfaces allow you to create multiple categories within your blogs. As you blog, you can assign your posts to certain categories. Then, by clicking on a link, you can view all the posts assigned to a particular category. This is demonstrated in the demo blogs I've created here.
If you host a blog on the HCC Learning Web, you will be able to control many aspects of the blog, but your students will not be able to create their own blogs or make original blog entries. They can still comment, however, and you can manage a course easily using this approach. You can look here for some different examples of how you might organize class blogs using the HCCS Learning Web.
If you host your blog somewhere besides the Learning Web (e.g. Blogger.com), students can create their own blogs and you can allow students to create original posts on a blog that you create. However, in choosing this option, you will forfeit some amount of control. You cannot, for example, edit or delet comments from someone else's blog.
See It In Action
Here are a few blogs that have been an integral part of their classes. Take a look around and you'll get a feel for how it might work for you.
The Gendered Body: Blogging about gender and its representation in Professor Blackmon's ENGL 360K (2004)
Rhetoric 1101:
The questions, arguments, and musings of twenty-two very bright students.
GER 3011W Hauptblog:
Das schwarze Brett für 3011.
Demonstrations
Now, if you've got all that (or not!) an you're developing an itchy trigger mouse finger, then it's time to start experimenting! Ruben Duran at HCCS Central College has put together two great tutorials that will show you how to use the Learning Web to create blogs and blog entries. Once you've got the hang of that, you can use the worksheet linked below to work out how you will implement blogs in your classroom.
The following documents are all Flash documents. If you have trouble viewing them, download a Flash player from Macromedia.