Instead of doing a Johnson-Eilola activity, I will take the cheap copout to discuss blogging in my classroom. While I like Johnson-Eilola's more standard blogging framework--where students read an article and then respond to it critically--I think that for blogging to work best, it must be a sustained and regular activity. As I already plan to have a course website and to use Blackboard, I think that expecting students to go to yet a third site regularly is perhaps too much. Furthermore, since I think that blogging, when done, should be done for one's exploration of oneself--at least in theory a private act--I think that if I am reading their blogs as their instructor, I will be stifling, rather than promoting, their auto-didactic pleasure. I think I might encourage my students to keep journals or to blog, it will be for their own benefit only.As I mentioned above, I do, however, plan to use BlackBoard. I haven't yet decided whether discussion posts will used, or, if they are, how frequently. While I like the idea of requiring students to think about material that we will discuss before class, I am worried about overwhelming them, which can, at least at times, lead them to turn in shoddy work and to write half-considered posts. So, I don't know that it's worth it.
Then again, I rethink my English 1000 class every 5 minutes or so, so we'll see!
3 comments:
I, too, am inclined to use Blackboard rather than a blog, as it's easy to organize and has space for other course related materials (course documents, etc). I also have the question of how much is too much (or too little): how do we determine how much we should require? How do we get students to really think about these things, rather than just posting randomly to try to meet the course requirements?
And your concept map is amazing!
Bri,
There will always be students who turn in half-considered posts. They're the same ones who turn in half-considered papers.
Seriously, I understand the concern about overwhelming students. I do not, however, think that asking them to consider a piece before class is overwhelming. You just might not need a blog to do that.
I had an instructor who required us to write two or three questions on a 3x5 card. The questions were about what caught our eye (something confusing, challenging, or annoying). That way, we were critically engaging with the work and had something we knew we wanted to discuss in class. I am thinking of using the Blackboard discussion forum for a similar purpose.
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