Blogging can hold you accountable. It can give you and outlet and allow you to share. But for any teacher that has been in their classroom with their curriculum for more than a few years, blogging can be scary! Much like with the students in the college course described in TechTrends, it can be difficult to put a “grade” on a blog. This is the other scary part!
Who has control if students are the “experts?” The TechTrends article laid out a great process for blogging where students helped to create the interaction, they kept in contact with the TAs and there were regular meetings to discuss how the blog was working. This structure still allows for the educator to be in control of how the curriculum and discussion is being facilitated but allows the students some ownership too!
I absolutely loved the idea of getting kids excited about blogging by having them do it in the room with the instructor. This would allow the instructor to really focus in on what is the desired result and showcase the kind of information and format that he/she wanted. It also gets the students excited about the way information is being shared because their thoughts are getting presented to the class. J
What I’ve found from the readings is this. For a blog to be successful, the educator must:
1) …set up strategies.
2) …give strong examples.
3) …foster extended conversations through heavy teacher engagement early-on.
Mr. Borges’ had his class of Special Education students’ blog together. This is a formal class situation. Whereas, after reading the students that were studying abroad in Spain, you could see their opened ended creations. Student’s blogs have little structure. They are open and without linear thought. The student blogs can be put together in topic form or by unit, as they are on Mr. Borges’ page.
Blogs have a place in the educational setting. Whether it is sharing of resources and information from Ferlazzo’s blog or the student abroad in Spain, we can find educational value in the experiences of others. Although simple, students worried about traveling to another country can find simplicity in the blog of Moniek on her travels. I, personally, was so impressed with Ferlazzo that I explored more of his page to see how he handles a “bad day” in his classroom. Blogs play a role in education and deserve a place in our world – but they must be educational, structured and exemplified by the people contributing to them.
blackhurstc_psu (Interview with Beth Wilmus – Foreign Language Teacher)
After listening to your podcast, I was glad to hear the discussion on BYOD. My daughter’s school uses this and it was helpful to have her perspective and thoughts. Her thoughts also challenge me to keep it fresh and not get stuck in my own ruts of comfort.
Two things really stuck out to me in your post: 1) establishing good blogging practice through heavy teacher engagement in the beginning. I think this is key to setting a good example. Many students might not be comfortable with the platform or expressing their personal experiences/opinions, but if they see their teacher opening up it’s easier to follow their lead. 2) your quote of “we can find educational value in the experiences of others.” To me, this is the essential benefit of blogging, whether it’s formal or informal. Blogging has to be more about having a voice or a platform to share your opinions. You need people to listen, discuss, and learn from what you’re writing. Grading blog posts can certainly be tough since they’re often (at least in parts) subject to personal bias, but good blogs will do more than espouse personal feelings; they will help others learn.
Rubrics for grading is one information I look for in a course to help me manage my learning. Grading is an assessment of learning. I tend to agree that assessment and feedback should be put at the centre of student learning, with assessment as learning and assessment for learning.
I appreciate that you share the two scary sides of blogging – the student writing and the teacher grading. It led me to think about and look for information on learner analytics to see what it can do and are used for.
http://steve-wheeler.blogspot.sg/2012/09/learner-analytics.html shares a useful infographic on Learning Analytics 101
Your blog grade is a good point. For me, I prefer to write in bullet statements. For blogs, would that be a deduction? Do I have to write in full prose? All of those come into consideration when I reflect on this and am now second guessing and questioning myself on how I would grade.
Here is how our blogs are graded based on the syllabus:
Blog posts (ongoing)
Blog posts for each week should be made no later than Saturday night. Posts made on Sunday will lose a point on the overall scale. Posts made later than Sunday will not be eligible for points. Blog posts will be graded using a holistic scale that relates to quality of thought, integration of content and resources, and ability to extend the dialogue. The following three levels will form broad categories for evaluation.
Excellent (3 pts): Post is intellectually sophisticated and engages with the content appropriately and in depth. Post extends the discussion beyond the presented material (i.e., is not a restatement or summary of reading materials) and provides clear support for positions/opinions taken (including references, resources, personal experiences, etc.,)
Good (2 pts): Post is intellectually sophisticated and engages with the content appropriately and in depth. Post may not extend the discussion too much beyond presented material or may not provide sufficient support for positions/opinions taken.
Acceptable (1 pt): Post indicates mostly restatement/summarization of content with some justification. There may be a few original ideas but they are not developed or elaborated substantially.
No post = 0 points.
Blog Comments (ongoing)
The first comment on a peer blog should be made no later than Monday morning. Beyond that time frame comments are ineligible for points. Peer comments are also graded on quality of posts.
A comment that analyzes the peer post and extends the discussion in new ways, and that integrates content and justification will gain 1 point. A comment that just agrees or superficially restates peer post will get no points.
In order to grade blogging and the amount of learning that is occurring, I wonder if we would have to use more “project based” assessment types. Maybe looking at keep student portfolios, where we reflect on the students initial posts to their ending posts will help to show the growth a student had in their learning over the course of time. I, too, would be interested in hearing how others assess students based on blogging and posts. Also, I liked how you pointed out the three main things we need to do in order for blogging to be successful. I agree that in order for blogs to work, we need to take time to teach how to blog and model various strong examples of what we expect. After guidance, I think it is important to let the students shine through the blog with very little teacher interaction. Thanks for your post and for the idea of assessing blogs!
I would be interested to hear how others grade blog posts. In the Bartholomew et al. article, the blog log was one way that posts and responses could be tracked. In my ANGEL discussion forums, I usually grade on completeness in answering the posed questions for the assignment, but responses can be much more difficult to grade. If you don’t require and grade responses, how do you know that the students are reading the posts from others and learning from those? In my interview, one of the problems described by my interviewee was that in discussion forums, she sometimes has students posting at the last minute, which causes problems with having a nice back and forth discussion before the module is completed. I like the idea that is used in this class and others that we have part of the week to post the initial blog post and the rest of the week to read, reflect, and respond.