On Academic Blogging

Here's an interesting article from Inside Higher Ed that explains why one blogger thinks many academic group blogs fail, that is, why what he calls "quasi-institutionalized" blogging tends to silence discussion. The insights might be useful as we seek to better understand our students' blogging practices. Read the article:

A Skeptic's Take on Academic Blogs

Good news!

In my classes this week, we started talking about analyzing pieces of contemporary culture in terms of American social norms that we've been discussing this semester. So, I encouraged the blogging groups to link out to an ad or website and do some brief analysis of whatever they link to for their post. Three out of the four groups linked out successfully, and two groups actually managed to imbed images into their posts. I'm going to jump on the opportunity in class tomorrow to encourage such blogging behavior, and give them some more ideas for places to link to in their posts. I'm quite proud of them all. Check out the posts if you get a chance.

Blog Action Day!

Hi All:

It may be a little late to have your students participate, but I just ran across this. I'm registering this blog as part of the project, for we are all doing our part by encouraging writing for electronic media (and presumably cutting down the amount of waste we would otherwise generate by using paper, right?). If any of you don't care about the environment, my apologies; but I believe this is relevant to our project regardless of whether we're part of the problem or part of the solution (I know, computers use energy too).

If any of you mention this in class--perhaps it will launch some sort of discussion related to blogging as social action--please do share. I'll report back if I hear anything about how this project went.

JB

Using Google Reader

If your online reading habits are anything like mine, you might find the blogosphere to be a double-edged sword. The good news is that I've been able to find blogs about virtually everything I am interested in, professionally and personally; the bad news is (like my interests) these are spread out all over the place, some on Blogger, some on Wordpress, some elsewhere. Keeping up with all of these is pretty time-consuming.

At least, it used to be. Enter Google Reader, one of many feed readers (aka aggregators) avaliable--for free--on the Internet. Essentially, it allows you to read multiple blogs from one location.

This might not sound all that great--after all, this is similar to what a blogroll does. But a feed reader will automatically tell you when new content is posted to each of the blogs you read. This means no more wandering from site to site, wondering if there is anything that you haven't read. I imagine this technology would be particularly useful for instructors who having students write individual blogs (especially if they are not linked to each other).

Setup is easy: you all have a Google Account already, so just sign in as you would in Blogger with your name and password here. This is what my reader looks like, just to give you a basic idea:

(Click on the image for closer inspection, sorry)

You'll notice that most of the screen real estate is taken up to display the blog posts themselves--here, for example, two separate blogs are represented that fall under the category of "blog RA fall 2007," which is my tag for everything related to this project. You'll notice that I have separate folders for cooking, friends, and music, just in case I want to read from only one of those areas at a time. It's nice.

Even better: your blogs are now searchable. Looking to track down all the posts of a specific student? Type his/her handle in the search box. Perhaps you remember an interesting post someone made about, oh, semiotics, but can't for the life of you recall when it was said or who said it. Again, harness the power of the Google search engine at the top.

The help section of the Google Reader is great, and I should mention that there are other programs/websites that accomplish these same tasks; this is simply the one I use and prefer. This aggregator is actually much more sophisticated than I'm letting on right now, but I don't want to overwhelm anyone. Sorry if I already failed you on that one.

Let me know if you have any questions, and I hope this is useful for you, dear readers.

JB

ps - Google: hire me!

My class blogs

Hello fellow bloggers. Here is the link to my 8am class blog, and here is the link to my 9am class blog. You will notice a few things right off the bat about these blogs: first, my 8am students have been much more "on the ball" with posting regularly; second, my 9am students have made some interesting posts for discussion in class about online etiquette and grammar expectations; third, none of my students have cared to link out to other websites or weblogs, despite my efforts and prodding.

However, the second half of the class has begun now in earnest, and the emphasis in their writing will be shifting more toward engaging with the outside world. So, I'm hopeful that more frequent posting and at least a respectable amount of linking will follow. I'm also considering requiring students to link out at least in their front-page group posts, now that they have their legs under them as far as the basic blogger apparatus goes.

Sarah's Class Blog

In the same vein as Clare's post, here is the link to my class blog.

(Yikes, I never published this, though I wrote it about a month ago!)

Clare's class blog

Hello! Here is the link to my class' blog: http://coolmwenglishclass.blogspot.com/

I do not know how to put it in a blogroll, which might be something good for me to learn soon! Anyway, my students and I are still learning, and we obviously have an over-abundance of links to www.dictionary.com in the first set of posts :/


I've asked the students to move away from citing that source, and I have given them some direction to find more sources for their own posts. (Thanks, JB, for the ideas you sent us via email)

And thanks for putting up this blog, hope to be able find time to write more in it!

Grading Rubric for Class Blogs

Below is a rubric we created to guide instructors as they grade their class blogs. Let us know what you think:

An “A” blog post…
…clearly states an opinion and describes that stance using logic and sources to support it.
…includes working links to relevant sources.
…follows online linking conventions (ex. 0nly underlining links).
…has been proofread and is free of grammatical and mechanical errors.
…has a clear title that forecasts the content of the post and contains your main argument or claim
…is formatted for on-screen readability, which may include bullet points, lists, and shorter paragraphs,.
…is of a suitable length to maintain interest and appropriately deal with the topic.

A “B” blog post…
…clearly states an opinion and attempts to describe and support it.
…links to external sources.
…generally follows online conventions in regards to linking and visual cues.
…has been proofread and is nearly free of grammatical and mechanical errors.
…has a clear title that forecasts the content of the post and attempts to present your main claim or argument.
…is near to a suitable length for interest and topic.

A “C” blog post…
…offers an opinion with little support, or offers details without stating an opinion.
…does not link to external sources.
…does not display knowledge of linking conventions and visual cues.
…has not been proofread and contains grammatical or mechanical errors.
…has clear title that forecasts the content of the post
…is unnecessarily long or short.

A “D” blog post…
…does not make a point, offer an opinion, or provide relevant details.
…does not link to external sources.
…does not display knowledge of conventions and visual cues.
…may ”flame” another writer or use a hostile tone of voice.
…has not been proofread and contains grammatical or mechanical errors.
…does not have a clear or descriptive title
…is unnecessarily long or short.


We'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on the rubric. This rubric focuses on blog writing as contributing to an academic or scholarly conversation. Michael Day points out that it doesn't, however, focus on student-to-student interaction and responses to concerns of other class members with helpful information, support, and guidance. Would this be a useful addition, consistent with the goals of much online discussion, where collaboration and cooperation among members of a community are important features?

Say Yes! to Blogging about Blogging

Hi All:

As part of our ongoing quest to understand how and why blogs can (or ought to) be used as a tool to teach writing, it has been suggested that we have a space of our own in which we can share ideas, reflect on our experiences, and build a community of knowledge rather than merely fending for ourselves. Hence, this blog.

While our primary audience is presumably ourselves--the six of us part of a blogging study at Northern Illinois University--our larger readership may potentially include other instructors in the Department of English and at other universities. With this in mind, I do not want to presume anything at this point, and I have questions about what the protocol is (are we free to refer to each other by name, for example?).

So long as I'm not being presumptuous, I wanted to mention that if anyone does not like the name of this blog or has any better ideas, by all means comment on this post.

Thanks, and I'm looking forward to reading your posts!