Assigned reading: Reflections from the Introduction of Blogs and RSS Feeds into a Preservice Instructional Technology Course by Ricard E. West, etc….
As we begin commenting on each others blogs this week, the article was timely. The premise of the article is that teachers learn just like their students learn (they are not an entirely different species teachers and students!) – through doing, reading, reflecting and collaborating. There is a brief introduction to what is a blog and the advantages of a blog (cheap, easy way to publish, accessible, audience, way to contribute and learn from community of people with a similar interest and dialog).
From here the authors reflect on two groups of teachers that they introduced to blogging. The first group had a generally favorable response to blogging and found the blogs to be a helpful in stimulating dialogs, reflection and learning. However the instructors felt that the students neglected posting to their blogs regularly and did not see consistent responding to their peers.
I found the gap between the student’s perceived satisfaction with blogs and the instructor’s dissatisfaction with the way blogs were used to be interesting. The instructors decided to add more structure to the blogging of the second group. The second time around the instructors taught the “conceptual basis of the tools – how they differed from other online tools.” p. 56 The instructors also added RSS feeds as a way to keep up with student postings in the second group.
Guidelines implemented by the instructors for the second class included:
- developing a well defined purpose for the new technology
- the purpose of the blog – private, or for discussion
- teaching how to use track backs and comments, blog rolls and perma links for discussion blogs
- addressing technical issues of establishing a blog
- modeling good blogging practice, reflective, links, writing for an audience, etc…
- need to review strategies after implementing (ie: a few weeks in re-evaluate what is working what is not working).
It seemed the larger take away (or, one of them) is that instruction needs to be clear and expectations defined before launching into blogging with a class. Also, be prepared to be supportive on technical issues as you introduce blogs to your class.
I’d love to hear more about what makes for the art of blogging? Your thoughts?