There are many individual motivations for creating a
blog. Tools, such as site meters (p.184),
which allow us to track our readership, can be rewarding if we see that people
are actually reading our thoughts.
However, it can also leave us bewildered if our blog is not getting much
traffic. There are some ways to promote
your blog, such as utilizing blogrolls (p.183), if your intention is to have a public following.
Blogging can be a part of an academic’s scholarly identity
(Mortensen, 2005), and these academics don’t have to wait until their research
gets published to start a conversation. Academic
blogger, i-anya (2005), states, “Through my blog… I have been afforded the
opportunity to build, refine and sharpen my intellectual ideas. By simply having a web presence I have found
other like-minded colleagues who enter into dialogue with me about my work on a
regular basis. This new type of
networking has been and continues to be, for me, an invaluable force in shaping
my thinking and my career choices” (as cited in Davies & Merchant, 2006, p.
171). I liked this comment because it
made me think about how allowing my students to create a blog in my own
classroom could provide them with that same experience, as well as prepare them
for what they will likely have to do if/when they go to college. (Students may also just learn a new way of expressing their thoughts, which to them may not appear to serve an obvious academic function.) When students read each other’s blog posts,
they practice a new kind of literacy—readers must also “pay attention to
layout, colors, images and even sound” (p.171).
In addition, readers are provided with a choice in “designing their own
reading path” (Kress 2003) by using (or not using) the hyperlinks (cited in
Davies & Merchant (2006).
What I really like about the idea of blogging in class is
that students are obviously writing for an audience of more than one. Often, students just write for their teacher,
and while some of them care deeply about the teacher reading their best
thoughts, others will be more motivated by the thought of their peers reading
what they have written. This is both
good and bad. As a teacher, it is
important that I police comments and make sure students do not leave harsh criticisms
just to be mean. I worry about the
students who might be made fun of because of their poor writing skills. While this “mocking” might give them reason
to learn how to correct their grammar mistakes and improve communication, it
might also serve to crush the self-esteem of an already struggling and embarrassed
student. Any thoughts on this?
Blogging can be used in all content areas, and can
definitely be utilized in English class.
Here’s a list of assignments I was thinking about for blogs:
·
academic blogs
·
“just for fun” blogs
·
image scavenger hunts (I got this idea from the
floating head on p.188) in which students find an image online (or create their
own and post it online) and tell what kinds of thoughts that image stimulated
·
Personal interest
·
How to
Any other ideas?
I really do not like the idea of policing comments. The Internet is supposed to be a place of free ideas. If we teach students critical literacy, they should be able to look past the grammatical issues and focus on content. By policing what they write, we are saying to them that freedom on the Internet does not actually exist or that the school is scared of the power of the Internet. Will there always be trolls on the Internet? Of course, but teaching the students how to handle the trolls is a much more valuable lesson.
ReplyDeleteAnn,
ReplyDeleteYou make a good point. I ALMOST phrased that statement as a question...asking if I should police their comments. To be honest, I wouldn't have time to REALLY police every comment, but I was thinking if I read one that was particularly harsh, I could say something to them outside of class like, "Wow, you can be a real jerk, huh?" ;) That might not be good either. *Still learning*