Teaching Digital Composition with Blogs

Krista KennedyDept. of Writing Studies

Why teach with blogs?

How does all this improve student writing?

Why should you go to all this trouble?

The Lofty Pursuit of

Multimodal Literacy

Network Literacy

Network literacy is “writing in a distributed, collaborative environment. Weblogs are the first native web genre. Serial, unstable, networked...”

“Bringing network literacy to the classroom means jolting students out of the conventional individualistic, closed writing of essays only ever seen by their professor.”

From Jill Walker's talk at Brown,

http://huminf.uib.no/~jill/archives/blog_theorising talk_at_brown.html

The blog is your playground.

Web 2.0 is your erector set.

Both are tools to teach them to compose...

and share what they make.

• Sparklit

• Flickr

• Second Life

• Meez (avatars)

• Comic Life

• Tabblo

• YouTube

• Odeo (podcasting)

The podosphere blues

Also...

college is about the public exchange of ideas.

Blogs are a space to write in public.

Public Writing =

Public Responsibility

Public Writing =

Real Participation in the Network

In order to accomplish all that...

You have to know exactly what you want.

Class news? Individual reflective journal? Responses to assigned reading? Building a learning community? Filter for media coverage of course topics? Building network literacy? Engaging the larger blogosphere? Portfolio for all writing done in the course?

How will goals drive your superstructure?

1. How many blogs?

Individual blog by instructor Individual student blogsSmall group blogsClass blog

Instructor Blog

• Alternative Course Management System• Class announcements

• Lecture notes

• Syllabi, policies

(Take note: This can be an excellent CV peripheral for you.)

Problems

Preserves traditional classroom hierarchy

Monologic

Individual Blogs• Promotes ownership of work• Encourages reflection

• Unconstrained by community norms

• Demands some technological responsibility

Problems

Makes community more difficult

Demands a certain sort of personality

Requires more time for assessment

Small Group Blogs

Encourage collaborative reflection Are conducive to peer review

Are a good communication tool for group projects

Problems

Usual collaboration issues

Overfamiliarity

Sometimes better served by a wiki

Often better served by a wiki

The Class Blog

Greater sense of community

Promotes ongoing discussion

Frequent post turnover

More conducive to comments

Easier assessment

Nearly automatic tech support

Problems

Individual voices can be subsumed

Lack of individual ownership

Universal Issue:

Forced Blogging

1. Building community is never a waste of time.

2. You must model the behavior you want to see.

2a. You must be a functional part of the community.

3. Provide clear motivation.

4. Offer prompts.

5. Offer incentives.

5. Bring the blog into the classroom.

6. Force options. Be dangerous.

Sirc, Geoff. English Composition as a Happening. Utah State UP, 2002.

Instructor responsibilities

People will find your blog.

Search engines Blog indexes

Uthink “Recently Updated Blogs” listing

Technorati

Blo.gs, weblogs.com

Referral logs

Links, trackbacks

Personal referrals IRL

FERPA compliance

Remind students of privacy issues

Use pseudonyms

Approve comments

Assessment

Provide specific criteria and rubrics in the syllabus.