Question #3 part 2

In reading through some things I had saved in my bloglines list, I came across Will's recent post on using blogs as exams. He talks about students demonstrating what they have learned in the class on their blogs throughout the semester. Maybe that is a good way to do it. We know what we would ask on a test. Why not use blogs as a replacement? Then they don't need to be graded separately. Anyway, check out Will's post if you haven't seen it yet.

Question number 3

Well, as intrigued as I was by Mr. McNamar's questions, I am just now getting around to thinking about #3:

3. Should posts be graded, if so, what should the criteria be?

This is something that I have thought about and written about before - here, here and here. I have seen several rubrics and schemes for grading blogs, including Dennis Jerz's, Bee's, Rick West's, Jill Walker's and some others I can't find right now. It seems that people who are assigning blogs for their students are grading them.

Of all the ideas I have seen, I think I like ones suggested by Bud's students best of all. Elle had some really excellent ideas, including

Blogs should be graded on all three; frequency, subject matter, and content.
For example; when writing a newspaper article (as I often have for the class we have at the school), you need the entire package of Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How?
Blogging has the same kind of essentials; Frequency, Subject, and Content. Kinda like the whole a+b+c = d, well Frequency+Subject+Content = Good Blogging.

Tyr' had some very good ideas, saying

I would like to put forth the idea that blogging should be based on a student by student draft, this is rather hard to do for large-scale communities, but at the same time for what we are doing in our experimental blogging class it is the perfect way to address the grading issue. Students, at the beginning of the class should explain what they want to accomplish with their blog as a final goal or as a 'major' goal. The occasional assignment/prompt from the teacher is fine to keep people on track and to make sure they have an accurate depction of what they are meant to do. If a student then does not do what attempted to set out for the class goals, then s/he will not receive an A, the grade would then fall into the hands of the teacher based on the other work this student has submitted. I feel this is the most fair way to grade without degrading the usefulness and limiting our abilities as a community to blog.

I guess I believe that blogs should be graded - or at least that some blog posts should be graded. The criteria should be spelled out and understood before the class actually starts. I think it should be graded in a portfolio format where students choose their "best" posts. It seems obvious that the student who writes more would have more to choose from and would, therefore, be likely to produce a better portfolio. That would seem to cover the question of frequency and content and, to a large degree, subject matter, as well.

Well, I am listening to Bud's podcast as I am writing this, and I think I have babbled on long enough. Still no real answers, but it was interesting to think about it. I'd like to hear your adeas.

Some questions about blogs in the classroom

Mr. McNamar over at The Daily Grind has an interesting post reflecting on blogging in classes. He asks and answers some interesting questions. What intrigued me most, however, were the questions at the end of the post that he didn't answer.

1. Should the teacher post on the classroom blog?
2. Should the teacher interact, through comments, on the classroom blog?
3. Should posts be graded, if so, what should the criteria be?

Now, I cannot answer really from my own blogging experience with my students, but I am willing to take a stab at answering them anyway.

As to teachers posting on the classroom blog, I definitely think they should. But it has to be done with a purpose and in moderation. Care should be taken not to monopolize the class blog and, as a result, keep the students from posting as freely as they might.

Barbara Ganley has a slightly different perspective, though. She says

* I stay off the blogs as much as possible. The blogs are for student exploration and discussion--not for me to guide and teach and dictate. I don't just talk about student-centered classrooms, I am committed to them. Of course, this means I have to plan the blog and the course very carefully, a complicated choreography which calls for the teacher to be confident in the process and in herself as teacher.

We must, of course, bear in mind that she teaches at the university level. But she makes a valid point. If we are truly committed to student-centered classrooms, we have to get out of the way. But I think that teachers can post as an equal member of the learning community. It requires a certain classroom environment, but I have seen it happen. I see teacher comments on the classroom blog as important, too. Here again, they must be made with the idea of facilitating discussion, not stifling or eliminating it.

Anne Davis' blog Teachers & Technology is an example of a class blog that is almost entirely done by the instructor. Her approach is to have the class blog for announcements and such while students do their posting to their own blogs. I will say, though, that there seems to be very little commenting on each other's blogs by members of this particular class. Anne's blog with elementary school students, the Write Weblog, was handled in the same way: Anne posted to the class blog and the students posted to their own blogs. But there is one notable difference between the elementary student' blogs and the college students' -- the elementary students commented on each others' blogs.

Well, this post has gone on long enough. I haven't answered anything, have I? And I haven't even gotten around to number 3, the question about grading. So I guess I will leave it here and come back and finish tomorrow. Meanwhile, if you have any ideas on the subject, please leave a comment.

Now we get to the real issue, I think

Jackmoron commented on a recent post here, saying

but so many teachers and parents simply don't know what kinds of plusses and minusses there are in an online life--and think, not unreasonably, when it comes down to it, that the kind of publicness that comes with writing online might be inappropriate or dangerous for an child.

I think this is a very important point - and maybe where our emphasis should be now. How do we educate parents and teachers about blogging, the Internet and technology in general?

As I think I have mentioned before, I am almost 55 years old; so my involvement with blogging cannot be blamed on the fact that I am young. How did I become involved in blogging? Why do I feel that online tools are invaluable in my classroom? I have to admit that my 60 year old husband was involved on-line long before I was. Why? I think we both became involved because of a basic attitutde toward technology - we love it. This may, in part, come from the fact that our last child only turned 18 this year. He is a videogame fanatic. But I think it is something else, too.

I think we are so interested in technology because we have lived in many different countries and have moved a lot when we are in the US. We haven't had all the "distractions" of family close by and a house to take care of. We welcomed email once we had access to it because it made communicating with family and friends in other parts of the world so much easier.

As for me, my interest in blogging was fanned by my love of writing. I have always expressed myself better on paper than in person. So blogging has given me a forum that I would never have seized otherwise. My husband, on the other hand, doesn't write anything if he can avoid it, but he loves to talk. He posts to discussion forums and has a lively group of friends with whom he "talks" regularly. And he reads blogs and comments on them, too.

So we may be slightly unique in our reasons for getting involved with technology. The question is, then, how do we educate teachers and parents who are more "regular" than my husband and I are?

As a teacher, I can say that a lot of it depends on an institutional attitude of openness to technology. As my institution becomes more innovative and more tech savy, it becomes easier for me to use more technology. And as more people in my institution use more technology on a regular basis, it becomes easier to convince others to give it a try. But looking at my own institution, I know that even though I will increase my use of technology in my classes again this coming year, almost no one else in the institution will follow suit. Unless the administration takes the time and money to educate all faculty about what the possibilities are, few people will find out for themselves. So we are back to that institutional attitude again.

As for parents, it is trickier. We live in such a climate of fear in this country right now, that I wonder if most parents could see past the possible dangers to see the value in blogging. Until we can move past that fear -- which recent events involving children prove is not ungrounded -- this is going to be a tough sell. I think that as schools come to embrace blogging more, parents will naturally be educated about it. Schools will send out permission slips like this one created by Lori Deucher Yum (linked by Anne Davis). Gradually parents will learn what blogging is and isn't and how to protect their children better at home as well as at school. But if schools don't take the lead, it will not happen.

Comments, anyone?

Lesley had an unsettling experience. She commented on a blog and then people blasted her for what she said. Actually, they just told the blogger to ignore her.

And I guess my question is, what are a commenter's rights and responsibilities? Can we comment on any blog no matter what? Do we have a responsibility to be respectful of each other when we comment? I would hope so.

I suggested to Lesley that maybe "blogs" where readers blast each other like that are not "blogs" so much as journals. Blogs, to me, should allow for and welcome discussion. There should be a level of respect so that even if we disagree, we can talk to each other about the topic.

If we stifle discussion on blogs by blasting comments, I think we've lost one of the greatest benefits of blogs -- the ability to communicate with people we would never otherwise meet and to share ideas with them. We may not always agree, but the discussion is what matters.

How does RSS change the rules?

Will furled an article by Mark Bernstein, 10 Tips on Writing the Living Web. He makes some great points, including that we must write for a reason and that we not be afraid to stand up and speak out. His second tip is one that I have been thinking about a lot lateley. He says that we should write often. He goes on to explain that it doesn't mean constantly but that it does mean consistently. He says

If you don’t write for a few days, you are unfaithful to the readers who come to visit. Missing an update is a small thing – rudeness, not betrayal – and readers will excuse the occasional lapse.

If you are inconsistent, readers will conclude you are untrustworthy. If you are absent, readers will conclude you are gone. It’s better to keep religiously to a once-a-week, or once-a-fortnight schedule, than to go dark mysteriously.

The article was written in 2002, a long time ago in terms of the Internet. It is a good article and still has lots of good advice, but I wonder how RSS changes things.

Few people actually go to my blog. (Heck, not that many read it anyway!) If they log into Bloglines or whatever aggregator they use and there is a post to my blog, they might read it. If there is no post, it doesn't even enter on their radar. At least that's how I am with my Bloglines account. I notice that there are some people who haven't posted in months, but I keep them on the list. When someone who usually posts regularly doesn't post for awhile, I notice it, but that is about it.

So I ask you, does RSS change the rules about how often we should post?

Safety online

I have been reading Will's posts here and here on schools that have banned Xanga and similar sites. A constant theme is tht children/teens give out all sorts of personal information on those sites and are, therefore, just waiting for a pedophile to find them. So the schools don't allow access to the sites at school.

Now, I must preface my remarks by saying that I am a parent and a grandparent. I have been a teacher my whole life, it seems. I am very concerned about the safety and well-being of my own family and of all the children in the world. But I think we are making a mistake here with the line of reasoning used by the schools.

I think that the best protection that we can give our young people is to deal with the issues head on. Yes, there are pedophiles out there who may be reading their posts. So how can they learn to protect themselves? If students are out there using Xanga on their own with no one talking to them about how to do it responsibly, they are much more vulnerable than if they are blogging in school and learning about the dangers and the ways to avoid or at least limit the possible problems. They also have an adult to whom they can talk about things that happen on their blogs, like inapppropriate comments and such. Anne Davis writes in connection with her elementary school students:

The last time an inappropriate comment happened the student brought it to the attention of the Instructional Technology Specialist. Now that occurred because we had previously talked to the students about the possibility of receiving inappropriate comments. Together with the students we made a plan of action for how we would handle it. Basically we decided:

1. We would not respond to the irresponsible commenters. We would ignore them.
2. The student would report any inappropriate comments to the teacher.
3. The teachers would delete inappropriate comments, if they found them first but would discuss the matter with the owner of the blog and with the group, if appropriate.
4. We agreed that it was unfortunate that the commenter had not used common sense and we would try to set good examples on our blogs.

If my grandson, who is almost nine, wanted to blog, I would much prefer that he do it with me or with his parents or his teacher to guide him than to think he was out there just doing it on his own.

Do we really think banning Xanga and similar sites from schools means the young people aren't out there using them? If anything, I would expect that more teens would try it out because it was banned!

It is reminiscent to me of the arguments about sex ed in schools or birth control for teens. If we ignore the "problem", it won't just go away.

Bud's blogging students

I am totally blown away by Bud's students. They continually write such intelligent things.

For example, they have been blogging about how to assess blogging. Yesterday Tyr posted his thoughts, saying

I would like to put forth the idea that blogging should be based on a student by student draft, this is rather hard to do for large-scale communities, but at the same time for what we are doing in our experimental blogging class it is the perfect way to address the grading issue. Students, at the beginning of the class should explain what they want to accomplish with their blog as a final goal or as a 'major' goal. The occasional assignment/prompt from the teacher is fine to keep people on track and to make sure they have an accurate depction of what they are meant to do. If a student then does not do what attempted to set out for the class goals, then s/he will not receive an A, the grade would then fall into the hands of the teacher based on the other work this student has submitted. I feel this is the most fair way to grade without degrading the usefulness and limiting our abilities as a community to blog.

What a well thought out idea!

I commented on his post asking

What would you do, though, if a student said his or her goal was to write 5 posts outlining what he or she ate for lunch? Do the initial goals have to be approved by the teacher? What guidelines should there be for that?

And today I received a reponse from Tyr on my blog. It starts out:

I would like to think that a student would set forth and try to go above and beyond say five posts outlining what s/he ate for lunch, but this is obviously a concern. It would make sense as that the teacher would have to approve these goals, but they shouldn't [i]have[/i] to. So, yes, the teacher would have to address these goals and assess whether or not they are worth the time of the student/community as a whole.

Tyr and most of Bud's students get it. I know that Bud has worked hard to make that happen. You have to wonder what would happen if all teachers could educate their students about blogging. I think we would see some pretty incredible thinking and writing.

The semester is over

Well, my last pretext for not blogging has come and gone. The semester has ended. Gradutaion was this past Friday. My grades are in. There is a month before the summer program starts. So I hope to be spending more time on the blog.

One of my former ESL students graduated on Friday. His name is Solomon. He was the first person in his family to graduate from college. He was actually the first to finish high school, too. We are very proud of him. I can't imagine how proud his family must be!

The habit of blogging

Bud has a post on his 100th day of blogging about developing the habit of blogging.

What I have noticed in my own blog is that I blog less when I don't have/take the time to read other blogs. That is what has been going on for the last few weeks. So it isn't the habit of writing in my blog that is concerning me but the habit of reading. I need to make more time for that. When I do, the blogging comes naturally.

Anyway, I am sorry I have been so sporadic lately. I hope to get back to being more regular here soon.