...Can it be done? I am really interested in using a class blog for my 12th grade writing class next year. I knew coming into this class that I wanted to incorporate technology into my syllabus. I knew that this 12th grade class would be my guinea pig. And when I got to play with blogs, I thought I knew that this was how I would integrate technology.
Let me rewind. I tried the wiki. I hated it. I tried the blog. I liked it. I got excited and immediately decided that this would be my technological integration. Then I read Kajder Chapter 8 and Knoble and Lankshear's article. I am a little less excited and a little more apprehensice about using a weblog in my classroom.
At the beginning of Kajder's Chapter 8, she states, "We ask whether a tool enables students to do something they couldn't do before, or could do before but now do it better. Only if the answer is yes do we reinvent...Time and learning are too precious to force-fit a technology tool into a lesson or activity if it won't lead to that rigorous, deep experience we are looking to construct" (Kajder 98). This statement, along with the fact that she does not include weblogging in this chapter on "Creating a Community," placed a bit of fear/anxiety in my heart about using a blog in my classroom. It caused me to think about why exactly I was considering a blog. Is it because it is new and exciting and different from my usual teaching strategies? Is it just a fad that seems like a good idea now, but that will get old as soon as I encounter some difficulties? Or could I actually manage to use a blog in my classroom in an efficient and interesting manner that both engages my students and causes them to think about English class and our topics in a different way? I, unfortunately, do not have the answer for this at this time. My zeal for blog usage in the classroom reminds me of a year when I started each class with a journal - they were going to write in it every Friday and I was going to read them all (100 or so) every weekend and write thoughtful comments. This lasted around two months. The comments became less and less thoughtful, and the entries less and less frequent. I don't want this to happen with blogging - if it is blogging that I choose to incorporate.
So, a little apprehensive and questioning my motivation for blog usage, I decided to read Knobel and Lankshear's article. This did not reassure me! Most of this article is about personal blogging. I enjoyed this but questioned what it had to do with use in the classroom. Then I came to the connection...or lack thereof. "Many student posts to school-endored blogs look more like being compulsory requirements and/or linked to student grades for the course rather than artifacts born of intrinsic interest" (88). They write this like it is a bad thing...but most of what I do in my classroom, especially with low level students, i s compulsory. Even with this blog entry...would I be entering it if it were not for the grade...I hate to admit it, but probably not. It's not that I do't like blogging. It's more that this isn't exactly the "stuff" that I would be blogging about if I had the choice. So...I am my students. Is it right of me to then force them to enter blogs discussing topics they might not necessarily be interested in discussing?
I think it is. Why not? Blogging is a form of discussion, right? I disagree with Knobel and Lankshear...so what if a blog seems compulsory. I compel my students to think everyday. They resist, I compel. By the end, some of them don't even need me to compel them!
I think that blogging in the classroom can develop into a thoughtful and useful element in a student's learning. Sure, at the beginning, they may resist. They may not. I may fail with my guinea pigs...but I can try it again with a new set the next semester (although if it fails twice I may relinquish my steadfast hold to blogging). I do think that it would be a disservice to not try to incorporate blogging in my classroom, despite Kajder's lack of discussion concerning this type of web community and Knobel and Lankshear's warnings concerning the crossover into the classroom. I think weblogging can become a useful tool in the classroom...just look at all of these fantastic blogs!
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I would like to echo what Sarah has to say in this this entry. If the material posted to the blog is teacher generated, and the students have the background to comment, or have the class requirement to comment, and they are going to be graded on their thoughfulnes, then it should work. This is closer to a teacher directed discussion, than a freewheeling open topic kind of blog-but that's OK. There is something about savorying someone else's idea and adding or countering it with your own. Let's say the teacher posted an excerpt from Macbeth, where Macbeth first meets the witches and the teacher requests students to account for Macbeth's willingness to believe their prophesy. Students could propose their own theories and agree or disagree with each other's ideas.
Another thought would be to create small group blogs where each group is given an assignment question,and each group member is responsible to respond to the writing assignment, but also to comment on each group memberss responses. Then there could be a more global question posted on a class blog that would intergrate some of the information from the other blogs that they would be required to read. Each student would write an independent essay not only with information generated from their own blog, but also from the other groups blogs.
I think you make an excellent point about the compulsory nature of much of what happens in our classrooms. That's a helpful way of putting the ideas I keep wrestling with, mostly Kajder's "We ask whether a tool enables students to do something they couldn't do before, or could do before but now do it better." Despite these words of wisdom I find myself eager to try out blogging with a guinea pig class, and I still don't see any harm in trying something simply because it's a bit different. Blogs have potential to foster an engaged discourse community, or simply engage students because it's different than handing in a paper. I probably sound like Krause before his class' failure, but I think it's pretty clear that the problem he had was in execution, not in the medium itself.
I had a similar experience with student journals, getting to the point that I just stopped reading them. One benefit of blogs is students can gain a little discursive authority by commenting on each other's work. There's a definite connection to 'sideshadowing' here, but I think I've been rambling enough for now.
My experience with journals has been equally unsatisfying, yet I continue to recognize their value even though I haven't been able to consistently manage them--or, this year, require them. Using blog does open the door again to their use. I'm envisioning each of my freshman students with their own blogs, required to post once weekly on a topic related to, say, the course literature, or their outside reading, or even their experience as a first year high school student.
All of your ideas about how you might use blogs sound worth trying. The advantage of blogs over journals is that they are immediately available for other students to read and respond to (and thus you can build response into the the work). The one thing I'd add to what's been said here is that I think it's important for students to see blogs as a genre of real-world writing as well as school writing--to have a chance to read and critique some examples of both as they begin to write their own.
I'm in an on-line course in CLTnet(http://cltnet.org/cltnet/)about using blogs, wikis, and podcasts in classes, because I,too, am ready to use the technology. The school has major concerns, however, and it will be awhile before I can do it. Because of my own recent experience with blogs, I expect some students to become proactive in class that resisted (or slept) previously, and I expect some to find their voices. My new (and first) blog tries to address this (.http://susan-on-line.blogspot.com/). I will put some readings up from class soon.
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