Lazyteacher

Image Credit: Flickr Playstation by Stebbi

I’ve had student blogs for a few years now and in our schedule we have a short Monday class (40 minutes) that I’ve used for SSR and quick updates on the week’s plan for learning. Next year, I want to expand blogging to go beyond class assignments and have them choose topics and ideas they are personally interested in and blog on those. That sounds easy but looking around the ‘Net it’s clear that it isn’t. Here are some of the sets of knowledge, skills, and habits of mind students will need to have for the whole project to work.

Of course, some of this becomes ingrained as bloggers blog. They learn these things by doing, but a little front loading should decrease the learning curve steepness.

Terminology

• Links (in a typical class less than 30% of my students already know how to create a link)
• Heading
• Posts
• Attribution
• Comments
• Spam
• Backchannel
• Blogroll
• Flaming, lurking, trolling

Skills

How to write for a blog. Slate magazine published a useful explanation about how style affects readership. Also, it’s important to explain the write then link rule otherwise students get stuck in searching for links rather than putting their ideas in a reasonable order.

How to find content to play with. It’s not always easy to find someone who is writing about their deep obsession with dragon orchids. RSS feeds are exotic for students. Start with Alltop or iGoogle to get the ball rolling and then move them to Google Reader or something similar. When it comes to searching through blogs, I may be idiosyncratic in finding Google’s Blog search to be more useful than Technorati. Of course, a del.icio.us search could work as could using popurls for a general spur for creativity and interest.

How to comment well. This is less technical. Students need to be convinced that commenting on other people’s blogs is a good deed. It demonstrates gratefulness for the work they’ve put out and it creates a potential for a conversation. Also, remember to comment back to those who comment to you. They also should learn how to agree constructively and disagree without contempt or condescension. A quick scan of comments even after NYT articles will show that even adults fall down on this.

How to follow copywrite laws. Students need to know what Creative Commons is and how to give credit for images they use. They need to be at least aware of the 4 factor rule and what is respectful of the intellectual property of others. See this FAQ from the EFF about student blogging rights.

Habits of Mind

Some of the previous bits included some habits of mind, but these are meant to be inculcated as well.

Blogging is about creating a community of constructive conversation: It’s easy to get caught up in ego battles and bush wars of various kinds (especially if someone on the Internet is wrong!), but attention should be paid to establishing a generosity of spirit that welcomes debate, encourages others, and participates in the discussion of ideas with creativity and civility.

Blogging is about becoming a lifelong learner: At it’s best blogging gives people a voice but also a collection of ears. Starting a blog or participating in a blogging community is a way of transcending distance, ennui, and inertia to create something important. We learn what we couldn’t have learned before; we teach to people who would never have met us otherwise.

Blogging is fun. It’s difficult to get students to forget that they are being graded. A superior teacher would be so zen that she could make students forget that the whole blog thing was her idea in the first place. In a reasonable world, students would find themselves drawn to blog to such a degree that it would continue even after the class is over.

This is where I’m at with this now. As time goes on, I may add a bit and refine it. Any other must-include parts of the blogging curriculum?

Resources:

Defining tools for a new learning space: Writing and Reading class blogs by Sarah Hurlburt