Dr. Michael Wesch

Okay, so the professor who made the video I posted in "Embedding Video" is going to be a keynote speaker at a small conference outside of Oklahoma City this March! I want to go! I may cancel class to go, in fact (or move it). Anyone want to meet up there? ;->


http://www.uco.edu/heartlandconference/index.html

Here's what he's up to now: http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/video-uses-student-voices-to-explore-new-directions-in-education/29288

Reflections on Blogs

Well, I have so many ideas for blogs now I have to put myself in check. I want to write a blog for those who want to "do" education after school or as part of homeschooling (http://lightingthefireresources.wordpress.com/--how's that for marketing?), I'd like to write another one for educators (I am finding that these are two very different audiences), and then I'd like to use them in the classes I teach.

This is the first step, I think, to using more tools like this for my writing students (like wikis). I am interested in using blogs to have students chart their progress in research projects (rather than writing them out in a spiral bound notebook that will either never be filled or will go into the landfill when we're done), but I think they could also be used as group projects, with four or five students creating a team of blogs on certain essays or texts that we are reading and creating their own reading groups (ideally that would continue on after the semester and perhaps move to new and different reading they are doing).

Long ago, when I taught a course on Women's Literature (a general education course that was offered as one of several that could fulfill a "gender" requirement) I decided that my goal in that course was going to be to make the students so excited about reading that they would continue to read books by and about women even after the course was over. We watched films, students taught portions of each story, we didn't take the literature too seriously, but we did read it critically and enjoy it together. That's the sort of feeling I hope to duplicate with these exciting, fun tools. Even if they aren't writing academic essays after college is over, I want them to continue to write--blogging may be a first step towards that goal.

This semester I have learned how to introduce a blog, that the title is important, that you can manage a blog and a blogroll with Google's "reader" tool and RSS feeds. I learned how to market my blog, which I plan to do soon. I also had some great conversations about how to use blogs in a way which forwards our educational goals, not simply adds a technology for the sake of doing something new. The most important thing I learned, though, is that I love this stuff, and I want to continue reading. I've read Tapscott's MacroWikinomics, and now I am reading The World is Open (a response, I am guessing, to Friedman's The World is Flat). Exciting times for educators!

Preparing the "Master Blog"

Okay, so I am planning to begin the "master blog." My working title is "Lighting the Fire: Resources for Generation Education" but that may be too wordy, too general...help? I want to review resources for the parents of kids who are schooling independently (or "afterschooling") and weave in discussion about how the world of education is changing (I think that the increase in homeschoolers and virtual schoolers is merely a small part of a larger sea change).

Anyway--ideas?

How to Market Your Blog

Marketing a blog is a sticky issue when you are using them in education, I would think. While a blog I might wish to write on educational technology and culture might require marketing, someone writing a blog for his first grade class might not want to really market beyond the families of his students. In the latter case, all one needs to do, probably, is send the link home with the kids and showcase it on "Back to School" nights.

I am considering writing a blog on the changes we are seeing in education. If I do that, I would certainly want like-minded and well informed (and perhaps not like-minded but at least well informed) people to join the conversation.

This article (on a blog) goes through the steps rather nicely. The first thing is to choose the name of the blog carefully. You can all see that this step is something I unfortunately missed with this blog. I do have someone in my household who is very good at titles, though, so I will take advantage of that resource. Investing in a domain name is probably a good idea.

The other really important tidbit I found in this article is something called "permalinks," ta dah! These allow someone to bookmark a particular post rather than having to search the entire blog for that one thing they recall reading a few months ago. I'll have to go look into that. Blogger is supposed to have this already included, but I don't see it, so if anyone knows how to apply it, I'd love to know!

The full article is here: http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/1064/how-to-market-your-blog-and-keep-your-readers/

Finally, here's an article I found on "unusual" ways to market your blog. http://www.problogger.net/archives/2007/06/07/5-uncommon-ways-to-market-your-blog I didn't really find them that uncommon, but they do go beyond the way you set your blog up.

I have really enjoyed these assignments, and I am looking forward to seeing what you all have found in your searches. I think I may begin that new blog. I'll have to start thinking about it!

Managing Multiple Blogs

So in searching for help on managing multiple blogs, I came across this article from The Chronicle of Higher Education (which is a great paper, by the way, and the ProfHacker column is always good).

http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/tools-for-managing-multiple-class-blogs/22893

What is even more helpful than the article, though, are the comments below. One mentions a blogging rubric, which I will probably work with and customize for my class. It's from a blog called "Sample Reality: Pedagogy and the Class Blog":

Also, the comments discuss Word Press blogs and the "semi-private" setting which allows only the instructor to read student posts. So I poked around and found that in Blogger, those choices are under Settings-->Permissions. This would take care of some of the privacy issues if that is a concern.

My concern, as always, is time. If I have students using blogs, I have to read them all, which means I should make some adjustments that week about posting in their discussion forums. I am getting used to Google's "reader" but it still seems very crowded to me and I'm afraid I will miss things. I am, however, really interested in seeing whether the blogs are a useful tool for students to track their own progress.

I could use the "team blog" option, but I don't think that would give me the results I want at this point, but it does give me some good ideas for my more advanced classes. I can allow students just to post and not have administrative control, although I would also probably allow them to have their own blogs too, if they wished. One of the great things about technology in the classroom is the freedom it gives students to "co-create" learning experiences and to help others learn. Restricting them only to a team blog seems to fly int he face of that, although if we worked on it as a class project it might really be fun.

So, in the end, I suppose my current, very tentative management plan is to have specific required posts on the blogs (thought they will be free to blog more often). I will have a rubric for grading those posts up at the beginning of the term. In addition, I will set up two separate email accounts in Google so that I can separate the blog readers. (My school signs up thirty student in composition and usually about 10 drop by the fourth week, so we're talking approximately twenty blogs per class).

Using Blogs as a Teaching Tool?

I really like the idea of a blog focused on a specific project. I think they could be used to really wonderful effect in the classroom. Right now I am thinking about having the students in my first year writing course blog about their writing process, what they are learning about doing research, citation, plagiarism, etc. and giving them points toward participation for completing those posts. My concern is keeping up with them all, but if I don't overdo the number of required posts and set some time aside to look at all of them in one sitting (one class per sitting), I should be all right. The idea would be that at the end of the term they can look back and remember all the things they have done and learned. If they want their friends and family to see what they are up to, they can just point them to the blog.

I love the idea of having a blog to keep the parents in touch with what's happening in their classrooms, but I teach college-aged students and adult students, so that kind of application isn't of value to me personally. I do, however, think I might begin a blog that reviews or explains the great books I've come across while homeschooling my daughter. I'm sure there are lots of those blags out there already, but this way when someone asks me "What did you use for..." I can just send them to the blog.

Also, if I ever get to teach Creative Writing again, what a great way to brainstorm ideas or set up readings! It would be terrific to list all the writer's events taking place locally, too.

To add to the "if I ever get the chance" list, I think I could do a great blog on a historical or literary "road trip."

I've signed up for all the rss feeds, but is that just the link to other blogs or does it inform you when there are new posts? So far I'm not getting any messages, but perhaps I'm not looking in the right place...

Blogging--Back to the Beginning?

I ruthlessly swiped this from William's blog. (Thanks, William!) It's just such a great history of social communication/news I couldn't resist.