OMDE 603: Is Blogging Worth It?

It depends on the objective.

This question has been asked about blogging for as long as blogging has been around. I remember sitting in class almost ten years ago, as an undergrad, with my awesome professor, a woman who had little patience for--well, many things. Blogging was one of them.

"I don't understand blogs," she said dismissively. "It's like putting your journal online. Your private life. Who cares? Who cares about your private life?"

Lots of people might, depending on who you are. But she went too far here; blogging needn't be private. It's personal--one's own thoughts about something. About ideas. It's the difference between memoir and personal essay. Thoreau would have been blogging from Walden Pond. Emerson would have been a prolific blogger. Their essays were written to be read--they wrote for an audience, like bloggers. In other words, blogging is branding. It's sharing who you are and what you do for the purposes of building an audience. For readers, it's a way of getting to know someone better.

In education, blogging is another way of promoting critical thinking and reflective learning. We figure out what we think by writing, as Joan Didion (and many others) have said. Written. As a writer and writing teacher, I believe this wholeheartedly; this is what I teach my students. I don't ask them to blog, however. It's not a primary medium for them. They don't read them. They may stumble upon them while looking something up, but they don't read blogs, or blog posts, in situ. (Well, they don't read anything in situ, but I digress).

I'm far more interested in getting students to write and think and discover with each other, in community. This is my problem with blogs: they're devoid of context. The vast majority of them, especially the ones we ask our students to write, don't have a real audience. They're public, but virtually no one reads them. We read the discussions. Instructors read the discussions. Blogs? Not so much. Who has the time to read a bunch of blogs? That requires clicking on 15 different links. That takes work.

We were assigned two articles on blogs in Module 3: Web 2.0 Technologies for DE. One of them is Pang (2009): Application of blogs to support reflective learning journals. In it, Pang lists the following advantages:

1. Blogs provide an opportunity for an instructor to gain rapport with the students and understand their needs and backgrounds. 
2. Blogs allow for monitoring of student progress so that the instructor can step in if the student is falling behind. A blog provides for continuous student feedback as opposed to waiting until the end of the semester for student feedback—which may be too late for corrective action.
3. The instructor can identify issues and challenges faced by students by reading about their experiences with the assignments in their blogs.
4. For an information technology course, students can learn and understand about a blog itself—both the concept and the technology.
5. Students modify their behavior in reaction to the content contained in the instructor's blog.

In my experience, none of these apply to this course. The first one happens in the discussions, not the blogs; the instructor isn't commenting on these blogs. Only we are. That affects #2 and #3, as well; there is no continuous feedback, so these are moot. #5 isn't applicable; the instructor doesn't have a blog, or hasn't asked us to read it. So, the only one that applies is #4: this is an education course, so we're learning by doing--learning about blogs and their value by keeping our own.

In that sense, this activity has been useful in reaffirming why I don't ask my students to blog. I want to engage with the course content and ideas--with other people! So, I'm heading over to the discussions now. At least I know that what I post will be read.

References

Pang, L. (2009): Application of blogs to support reflective learning journals. DE Oracle @ UMUC. Retrieved 4 July 2014 from http://contentdm.umuc.edu/cdm/ref/collection/p16240coll5/id/1

Blended Interactions

The second week in BlendKit14 focuses "Blended Interactions" and essentially addresses two different things: student-student interaction and student-instructor interaction. These are two of the three components in Garrison, Anderson, and Archer's (2000) Community of Inquiry Model. It makes sense to leave the third one--student-content interaction--out for now, as this week seems to be more about Social Presence and Instructor Presence. The people. 

Anyone who knows me knows that this conversation is at the core of my pedagogy and, increasingly, my research. To me, Blended Learning makes it possible to facilitate the most effective and engaging interactions between students and between student and teacher. This is critical for writing courses. Plenty of research suggests that it's critical for any discipline, but I'll only speak to what I know. As a writing instructor, my first job is to facilitate a healthy, safe, supportive learning environment. Only then will students be able to share their work, accept and give constructive feedback, and feel compelled to revise and revise some more. Writing is a process. Learning is a process. Both writing and learning are social acts.

Since I started teaching blended courses two years ago, I have taken advantage of the discussion forums much more than I could in the past. In a 100% face-to-face class, discussion boards are always homework in a class that already has an obscene amount of homework. In a blended class, discussion boards can be both classwork and homework. It's taken me a couple of semesters, but I've finally arrived at a model that makes discussion boards 20% of the course grade. We have one every week, and most of them have structured responses, e.g., go back and find two people to respond to. 150-200 word responses (on top of their 250-300 word posts). That's 2-3 pages of informal writing every week on topics that range from personal expression (like the introductions in Week 1) to reflections to analysis. They work, when designed well. 

As for my face-to-face classes: I do very little lecturing. I could, in fact, do more (I'll come back to this later. I'm realizing now at the end of the semester how much I haven't adequately addressed, content-wise, which I need to figure out over the summer). What I do instead is a lot of group work in response to maybe a ten-minute presentation. In order to create a close community of writers in a format that only has 75 minutes of face-to-face contact, the group work is critical. I also set up the desks in a horseshoe (at least, I usually do) so that we're all looking at each other. When possible, I sit down, too, so that I'm part of the circle like everybody else.

Going forward, I know that I want to have more hands-on time with student writing before they submit their formal assignments for a grade. I think that I can do more of this in the f2f classes, though it's tough; we have so much to do in all three classroom environments (f2f, AdobeConnect, and asynchronous OL days) that it's hard for me to see how exactly I could provide direct feedback live. But I know I need to get my hands on students' drafts earlier. I can, too--their drafts are uploaded electronically for peer review, so my TAs and I have access to them. We need to do more than skim these--we need to provide more written feedback on them. It's time-consuming, but vital. 

That's my takeaway from Spring 14. I feel good about the sense of community in my classes, but I need to provide more direct instruction and direct feedback. More instructor presence, both in the classroom and one on one with students. 

Designer Blends

I have spent two years designing, redesigning, and improving my blend. I have spent an inordinate amount of time making and editing lecture videos, rewriting lessons for asynchronous online days, modifying them for synchronous AdobeConnect days, and scrapping both lessons at the last minute to teach the lesson face-to-face. I have surveyed my students extensively, exhausted my TAs, and pushed myself to the breaking point in getting this blend right--all while simultaneously rewriting my syllabus each semester to incorporate more lessons on information and digital literacy and transform many traditional assignments into digital ones.

From day one, my mission has been not just to maintain but to strengthen the productive, interactive community of learners that is paramount to my teaching. I believe that deep learning is rooted in Dewey's collaborative constructivism: we learn through doing, with each other. Critical inquiry and deep learning is predicated on a safe, supportive learning environment. As such, "going blended" has meant taking advantage of synchronous activities to foster exploration and experimentation in Googledocs and face-to-face classes and asynchronous activities to foster reflection in discussion boards and Voicethreads. My students are free writing, experimenting, drafting, revising, editing, and polishing work that is significantly better at the end of the semester than it is at the beginning. They are collaborating with each other more comfortably. They are writing more on the discussion boards than they ever could speak in class. We know each other better than we did even in my highly participatory, horseshoed-desked, discussion-based traditional classrooms.

The rewards can be seen through my students' writing and self-awareness. If writing is thinking on the page, and my job is to help students think critically about themselves as learners and writers, then my students need to be writing more. They are: My students produce an average of 70 pages of writing every semester, 30 of which are revised and polished. Even in my early semesters teaching blended, my students were making greater improvements in their writing than my students had in my traditional classes. They are reflecting on their digital literacy and media addictions, their research skills, and how well (or not) their high school teachers prepared them for college writing and research. They are providing more and better feedback to each other because they have more time to write careful feedback online. Plus, the online feedback is written, so students can't forget what their peers have said. They just need to go back and look.

If blended learning is seen as a method to save time and resources and increase convenience, then it's never going to gain acceptance among educators, especially compositionists. This does not bode well, for more and more college courses are being offered as blended/ hybrid every year. Resistance from compositionists is warranted if the format is pedagogically unsound, but done well, the format is not simply pedagogically sound: it's pedagogically obvious. Students are writing more, interacting more, and reflecting more. They are doing this by writing more. The net result is that my blended students are making incredible progress in fifteen short weeks, progress that I never would have thought possible three years ago. As a writing teacher, I will take nearly any risk if there's a possibility that it will help my students become better writers. The risks are high. The rewards are real.

Lofty Ambitions: How Much Theory Can I Introduce in One Week?

Well, that depends.

What's my objective? To stick to my syllabus? To frontload the theory before students tackle the first major paper? Or to ensure that students are learning the material in a manageable way?

Hm, I don't know. The last one seems like a laudable goal. Some might say it's the only important goal up there. In fact, I'm one of them.

Look: the stuff I teach is harder than students expect. It's harder than most people imagine when I tell them what I teach. First-year college writing: two parts process writing and one part research skills blended with peer review and served with a slice of grammar and punctuation?

Sure, I do all that. I also teach argument theory, digital literacy, and rhetorical awareness and analysis. That doesn't happen quickly, as I am grudgingly remembering this week.

The first two weeks were devoted to rhetorical context and summary. As I stand here at the end of Week 3, I'm rethinking that unit--I'm asking them to summarize an argument before they even know how an argument works. Whatever--I'll revisit that at some point. I need them writing within the first week, and the articles I choose at the top of the semester are easy enough to digest:

We start with two sample summaries of Gabriel's 2010 Plagiarism Lines Blur for Students in Digital Age. Then, groups of students summarized either Steve Kolowich's 2011 What Students Don't Know, Peg Tyre's 2012 The Writing Revolution, or Josh Keller's 2009 Studies Explore Whether the Internet Makes Students Better Writers. 

This past Monday, they submitted an individual summary on either Carr's Is Google Making us Stupid, Shaahin Cheyene's 2012 How the Internet is Changing our Brain or Clive Thompson's 2012 Is Google Wrecking Our Memory, which they'd already discussed in a Lyra Classic: an overcomplicated discussion board prompt that asked them to put their article in conversation with Eli Pariser's Ted Talk on Internet Filters (everyone needs to watch this--everyone--and assign it in class. Do it because we all need to know this, and do it because the discussion that this generates is brilliant).

I asked them to submit these summaries as an ungraded assignment. I've never done this before--it's usually associated with maybe ten lousy points--but I like it. I told them that this was their chance to receive feedback from me before handing something in for a grade. Makes sense, right?

Back to my dilemma: I introduced stasis theory last Monday, which is easy enough to do in fifteen minutes. The trick is to follow up with it well in the next class. This went okay yesterday, but I was more distracted by the fact that students clearly didn't grasp rhetorical context--that thing I've been pounding every day for three weeks now--and had to. I spent more time on that by tying it in with the other big piece of yesterday: simple online research skills. It was an online synchronous day in AdobeConnect, so we all hit Google and searched for a few things. We got to reinforce Pariser--"Who has a different results page than I do?" and then go over simple things like using quotation marks and filtering for dates (2011..2014). And then we got to the good stuff, which I hadn't even planned on:

"Okay, before I even click on this link--what do I know about this article? Here's my results page, and I've taken three nanoseconds to decide I want to click on this one. Why? What am I looking for?"

The most important clue: "Where is it published? What can we detect from the website? That's the first step. What else? Date. Okay. Let's click on it. Here's the link in the AdobeConnect chat box so that you can go to this article on your own computer. Alright, let's check this out. I've never read this article before. Let's pretend that we've all been assigned a short, 750-word assignment about blended learning in college. A basic expository piece to be published in The Diamondback next week. Take a few seconds to scan this. Would you use this source?"

This was not in my lesson plan. But this was the perfect way to introduce (introduce?!! Then why didn't I do this on Day 2?) rhetorical context. Now they get it (I hope. I should still reinforce it Monday so that it totally sticks...). But in essence, they've got it. Great. So then the trick was to bounce from there to stasis theory, picking up from Monday, which I thought they could nail as preparation for...

...Toulmin theory this Monday?

I must be Out. Of. My. Mind.

Stay tuned for Major Syllabus Adjustment #1 in Spring 2014.

Epiphanic Fridays: Five Powerful Reasons to Respond to Your Students' Initial Discussion Board Posts

I just finished responding to the "Introductions and Writing Habits" Discussion Board for one of my three sections. It's time-consuming, yes, but invaluable. Here's why:

Value #1: My students deserve to be seen. My TAs respond to each student, and students respond to each other, but students really need to hear from me, too (which I haven't always done in the past). I teach blended sections, so students only see me in a brick and mortar classroom once a week. The prompt this semester enabled me to do a lot:

The purpose of this discussion board is to get to know each other better, to reflect on your experiences with writing and learning, and to discuss your goals for this course.

What kinds of writing do you do the most? What do you enjoy the most? The least? What writing habits have worked well for you in the past that you can continue to employ this semester? What difficulties with writing (think broad--this can also include researching, studying, time management, etc.) would you like to overcome? What can we (your classmates, the TA, and Lyra) do that would help you meet your goals this semester?

Primary posts (due Wednesday by midnight): write a 200-250 word post introducing yourself to the class. Include the following:

• The things you shared about yourself in class (name, where you’re from, etc.)
• A reflection about your writing experiences (based on the questions above).
• A picture of yourself: How to add a picture to your Canvas profile

Secondary posts (due by class on Monday): Respond to the posts of two of your classmates, identifying things you share in common, if applicable, and offering feedback and strategies for how each classmate could meet his or her semester goals.

(Basic takeaways: we all struggle with writing and students are resources for each other)

Value #2: I know my students much better than I usually do this early in the semester. Reading and responding to their writing habits and challenges has enabled me to see who likes/ doesn't like analysis and research, who outlines, who prefers creative writing, who struggles with time management and distractions (don't we all!), and so forth. As evidence: I can identify at least one thing about most of my students in my first two sections, but don't feel as though I know anyone in my third section yet. Why? Because I haven't started responding to their Intro posts.

Value #3: Students get to know me. The more curious students will likely read more than one of my responses (especially after this weekend's announcement, in which I will encourage them to do so). Throughout the nineteen responses, I covered things like where I've lived, where I've traveled, what I like to write, and especially how I approach the writing and research process. Rumor and research has it that students appreciate seeing their teachers as human beings.

Value #4 (HUGE): Students get a very good sense of exactly what we're going to do this semester. If anyone reads through all of my responses, they will:

• know what the first paper is all about,
• understand why we're starting with summary and analysis and how that leads to the first paper,
• understand why I'm asking them to respond to each other's posts, 
• understand the difference between "looking for" something specific in a text (e.g. rhetorical context) and responding to one of my questions versus responding to the actual ideas (such, such a good distinction to make...) and how that relates to the first paper, 
• know that they're going to start researching their semester project next week,
• know that we will spend a LOT of time on research strategies and tips (which they all want),
• know that I am militant about concision and that I will help them with that,
• know that I help them with time management by setting multiple due dates for partial drafts and full drafts,
• know that they have a full week to revise their papers after the in-class draft workshops,
• know that they will write different kinds of arguments for different audiences, both academic and public (online), and
• know that I care deeply about what we do in this course and about making sure they learn what they need to learn to succeed in the rest of their college classes. More than once I mentioned that I revamp the syllabus and many assignments every semester, something I hope students understand works out quite well in their favor.

That's a lot of good information. Now, most of that is written in the syllabus and the "General Course Overview and FAQs" page on Canvas, our LMS, but I'd wager a bet that students will get more out of my responses here than whatever they skimmed (or didn't) last week. They theoretically read four or five syallabi last week. Reinforcing several concepts here in the DB, after they've gotten to know me and the class for a couple of weeks, will likely make a lot of my information stick.

Value #5 (GINORMOUS): I just solved one of the biggest mysteries of teaching writing.

I've been helping students with writer's block for seven years. I discuss my process--just sit down to write--and explain how that leads to figuring out what I think (Didion). Classic Elbow, Murray, Lamott--everyone. Puke drafts. 

That's good advice--it's helped a lot of students. But after reading and responding to at least ten students who struggle with "just getting started" and "staring at the screen forever," reminding a couple of students about what they learned in Graff and Birkenstein last week (Burke/ Entering a Conversation), and then reading one student's post about what his wife (an attorney) recommends (start with your research notes), it came to me: 

People, it's not about you. It is never about you. It's not about you, a blank screen, and your ideas.

You're writing to figure out what you think (yes) about other people's ideas. 

Okay, duh--I talk about this all the time in class. But what I say in class probably isn't in students' minds when they sit down to draft. 

Epiphany and Praxis:

Students, when you open up a new document for your papers, this is what you're going to do: you're going to copy your one-sentence summaries of all of the sources on your working bibliographies and paste them directly into the document. That's your starting place. You're going to look at these six ideas and then you're going to start your puke draft. Just. Write. Responses. To. These. Six. Ideas.

Cue forwarding ideas and synthesizing sources. Cue puke draft that doesn't feel as terrifyingly unorganized as a creative writer's puke draft.

After seven years, I just came to this now?? Yeah, yeah. The big takeaway that I will discuss on Monday with this class: I didn't get here until I had responded to everyone. It came to me within thirty minutes of getting up and doing something else. It was through responding ten times about the writing and research process, and reading the advice given to one of my students--that it all clicked. And that's what I mean by writing in order to figure out what you think. 

I'm wicked excited about this! Maybe not revelatory to anyone else, but I know that some students simply can't just write cold, no matter what I say about writing just for your own eyes first (Stephen King), or putting a manilla folder over the screen so that you aren't staring at your own words, or whatever--this doesn't work for every student. I suspect this strategy will. Staring at the one-sentence summaries of arguments you're about to engage with is a concrete reminder that as a writer, you are never alone. You are always writing in response to someone else's ideas, just like I'm doing right now. You're not "defending" your own argument--you're developing it based on what you've learned. Pasting the one-sentence summaries on the page will reinforce this core concept--it will literally put the "They Say/ I Say" right there in front of them. 

Brilliant. 

Name one other exercise in which you can do all of the above without writing responses to every student that every person in class can see. I'd love to know what you do!

Incredible Voicethread!

Okay, I've only listened to two slides so far in just one of my sections, but what I've heard is incredible! These are the moments that make all of the hours it takes to prepare an asynchronous day--a *good* asynchronous day--worth it. Voicethreads don't necessarily take too terribly long to prepare, but because this was our first one of the semester, I had to add a couple of slides just about what Voicethread is and how to use it.

The longest preparation time was designing and explaining the prompt. This is definitely a "Lyra Classic": A hyper-organized, hyper-specific prompt with assigned summaries to comment on and elaborate points to cover. Each student had to respond to two summaries--one on the article they did their own summary on and one on an article they did not read. The prompts for each response were different. I had to write that all out, make sure I assigned groups to the right summaries, and record myself on my webcam walking them through all of the prompts. On a couple of them, the amount of times I say "um" is horrible--absolutely horrible--but because it took me about six hours to put all of this together, I did not rerecord those slides. I did have a script for some of the slides, but not all of them. Yes, scripts help to cut down on the "ums." More later--I just wanted to quickly shout out how impressed I am with my students on only their fourth day of class!