Approaches to Classroom Blogging

AJ wrote on October 10, 2005:

Aaron…

I like the statement… encourage them to act like bloggers.

Ive had a similar problem with my classes. Most students are so programmed and beaten down by the education system.. they simply can’t imagine how to do something on their own.

Like you, Ive tried to find ways to use the system (points, assignments) to ultimately push students away from it and out on their own. Its not an easy trick… but a worth one to attempt.

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Aaron wrote on October 11, 2005:

Yes AJ, and if we can do that, then the institutions are serving society well. I don’t want to turn the word ‘institution’ into a four-letter word, because it doesn’t have to be. I just want to see more humane places where people come to learn and to share, not places where they are seen as numbers to be manipulated or minds to be shaped.

Where is the love? It is there, it’s just not a place from which many curricula come. Our curricula are entirely results oriented and their structures stiffle its compassionate flow.

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Jamie wrote on October 11, 2005:

Aaron,
I really enjoyed reading the commentary you wrote on the train back to Kyoto. You have identified a very important issue: the “crack the whip approach” vs. the intrinsic “encourage them to act like bloggers” approach. The best method is probably somewhere in the middle of the spectrum acknowledging the realities of the school environment but also sparking learners’ intrinsic motivation.
I was really impressed with the class blogging objective you mentioned in the discussion at JALT 2005. You talked about students freely blogging about their interests and creating online communities of members with similar interests. It made me realize that in my next blogging project, I need to think about relating to students more of an intrinsic incentive to blog.
By the way, I have updated my web page with some of the highlights of our blogging discussion at JALT 2005. I have included what you discussed. Pardon the long ugly link – I have pasted it in the message for anyone who might not be aware of the page. If you see any inaccuracies, please let me know.
http://www.englisheducation.iwate-u.ac.jp/Hall/Blogs/BlogFrontPage.htm

Jamie

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Aaron wrote on October 17, 2005:

Thanks Jamie. Looking forward to our next meeting!

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Teresa wrote on October 22, 2005:

Hi, Aaron and Jamie!
I’ve just read your articles and really enjoyed both.
A mix of both the “crack the whip” approach and the intrinsic “encourage them to act like bloggersâ€? approach has worked well in my latest blogging experience with first and second year EFL students: Have Fun with English! >http://64.71.48.37/teresadeca/school/fun-with-english5.htm<
From the very beginning I tried to follow the intrinsic approach, but immediately felt two things: I was leaving out what seemed like a significant number of students due to lack of access at home and not using the computers at school to browse through the blog, and with no access to email. So I tried two different approaches, low-tech to start with and then high-tech:—a photocopy of an email message window that they would fill in as if they were doing it for real: it worked! They loved it!
http://64.71.48.37/teresadeca/school/fwe5-mar05.htm#6Mar05 (see this example)—CALL lessons every two weeks for a period of 45 mins. (first year) and every week for 45 mins. (third term of the second year). In some of these sessions their task was to go through a part of the blog and then write a group or class message with the aim of getting “everybody” involved and in touch with “our” blog, as I always referred to it in class.
My biggest problem has been to keep students involved when they stop being my students and friends. The regular teacher-student contact and regular reminders about new content or an interesting message seem to me to be very powerful factors to keep the flame lit!
However, there are a couple who do stay in touch. I will update the blog later today to show two recent examples.
Thanks for two great articles and a very interesting JALT experience!
Best,
Teresa (in the Lisbon area, Portugal)

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Teresa wrote on October 22, 2005:

Hi, again!
I forgot to include the link to the CALL lessons:
http://64.71.48.37/teresadeca/school/call-lessons04-05.htm
There is feedback on each lesson – how we did it and how it went -, which may be of interest to some teachers working with young students, in the blog/plog. I coined the word “plog” in the Webheads community as a cross between a blog and a Web page. Vance Stevens then came up with a cross between a blog and a portal to other activities, pages, etc., which also applies to Have Fun with English!
Teresa

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Aaron Campbell wrote on October 23, 2005:

Hi Teresa…

Thanks for your feedback! It’s interesting how your students loved writing on a photocopy of an email message window. I guess it’s an example of how low tech can sometimes be high motivation.

I’ve had the same problem keeping students involved in blogging once the semester is finished. Perhaps some of them start blogs in their native language and don’t tell me about them, but I think most students give it up.

Well, judging from the feedback, it looks like your CALL lessons were an overwhelming hit! Stay in touch…

Aaron

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Aaron Nelson wrote on November 02, 2005:

Hello Aaron, Teresa, Jamie, and AJ!

I have found this conversation to be completely interesting and relevant to where I am with my Business English students.

I totally see exciting possibilities with the world live web in the classroom. I see those opportunities because I use them in my own professional development endevours.

My frustration point:

Encouraging adult students to get into blogging. My students seem to not have time. No time do do exploritory “homework” tasks that would take about five to ten minutes max. Blogging is just…to me anyway….way out of reach, though I dream about the day of having all of my students actively blogging in English, connecting with a global audience. Wow. That totally excites me.

However, if they can’t spare the time to answer a quick question via e-mail (I’ve set up a yahoo! group around one of my classes to help my students practice their English e-mail writing skills)I totally see difficulties, and am experiencing them, in getting my students to post to a blog.

That’s all I want right now. A simple post. You’d think it would be easy, but so far…it has been like pulling teeth.

I’ve been following, well attempting to follow, a “middle of the road” approach – like what Aaron and Jamie speak of so well. I’ve been evangelizing the virtues of blogging. I’ve been bringing in blog articles – printing them off, kind of like Teresa’s cool “low tech” photocopy approach, in an attempt to prove relevancy (good legal oriented course content is hard to come by, but a blog written by a lawyer who is specialized in the exact same area as my student…now that’s what I call relevant!) but so far, it has been a great exercise in patience and no results.

On the other side of the road, I’ve also tried to fix a percentage of their grades around their blog entries, so far to no avail. One student is taking home a 70% because he decided not to blog – again, the assignment was pretty simple..just a few sentences about what he does.

So for me, big frustrations with the whole work/life/blog balance. :)

But I am also, I hope, realizing something. I’m in charge of our company’s profesional development program. We’re using a combination of small group PD sessions, and blogs to conduct our training.

Up until a few days ago, getting my team of teachers to blog has been slow, difficult, and most of the time very…pathetic. To be fair, some have tried way more than others, but it has been a very slow start-up. Again, I’ve been following a “middle road” approach to this, working hard to show the value of blogging (one reason why we’ve focused our PD efforts around small groups of three or four-you get more quality face time…)and at the same time, hooking their participation into their monthly bonus scheme.

Quite a few have had a seriously reduced bonus these last few months.

The change:

It’s been very slow, but just over the last week or so, blog activity on our PD blog has started to go up. No so much in the number of posts, but the quality of those posts has been…amazing. Really deep, conversation fire starters.

I’ve also opened a paper based version. I know not everyone is wired to write on a computer, or is interested in blogging, so I’ve been working around the development of portfolios. That too has met with some really exciting results. Deep entries, and well explored thoughts around practice.

So maybe I’m seeing something here, and I would sure love everyone’s feedback:

Good classroom blogging practice:

1.Model. Lots!

2.If you have a blog, show it off in the clasroom if you can. That’s what I’ve been doing with our teachers…little by little.

3. Evangelize often.

4. Expect slow adoption?

5. Focus on the results over time? (Like what I’m starting to see with our teachers perhaps…we’ve been advocating our PD blog for almost 4 months…and only now are we starting to see some positive growth.)

Thank you to all who read this. I would really appreciate your comments.

Aaron Nelson

Mexico City

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Gary Bertoia wrote on November 21, 2005:

Thanks for your thoughts.

This topic became the topic of discussion yesterday in my class. Kids, grade nine through eleven, were offering their ideas about how I could more effectively structure our Tech Class Blog.

I guess I have started with more of a “crack the whip” approach but their thoughts will probably move me more towards the middle of the spectrum.

They commented on assessment (they thought the Blog should be assessment free), topics (they thought the topics should be on issues that related to them personally not ones I find), responding (they thought they should respond to fewer posts made by other students).

At this point I think I will try some minor modifications then ask the students in December for advice and thoughts. I am not comfortable with giving up total topic control … with the diversity of maturity levels in this class I still think some structure is needed.

I will also add a “Find your own topic” component to this list of topics and if the students find something interesting to Blog about that relates to what we are doing let them use it.

I will continue with assessment via a Rubric as I think, especially with the younger students, that giving them structure to help them with the process is necessary.

We shall see where this goes.

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Alfredo Ascanio wrote on May 13, 2006:

El concepto que aparece en tu escrito y que revela el éxito de los Blogs, como un medio de enseñar valores, es que con esta herramienta se termina la clase autoritaria y surge como una alternativa la clase propia de cada estudiante, decidiendo su propia formación. Saludos cordiales
A. Ascanio
http://askain.blogspot.com

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