Tag: blogging

Blogging Skills, writing and blogging

Adding Texture to Academic Blog Posts

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  1. Using Footnotes to describe way-making , and add context
  2. Using Title HTML tags to define, and elaborate on concepts
  3. Signalling register and voice changes
  4. Signalling in-line edits with the combination of the strikethrough and italics keys
  5. Inserting revisions and updates with different font types

Note to audience/self: this addendum provides extra context for me, providing an anchor and history of the origins of the thought processes.

Key Concepts:

I am responding in part to rather long night of vivid lucid dreaming about the topic of defining the nature of academic blogging, brought on by a long stretch of active blogging the day and night before, and likely inspired as well by Walter Ong’s textbook, Orality and Literacy.

path-makingIn addition, I recently posted a photo of thousands of small fish in a holding pond, and it reminded me of the idea of piling 1

But unlike piling, the blogging activities that involve layering, or adding layers of revisions and updates in various ways, can enable students to track their progress at different levels that go into more depth.

From reading Walter Ong’s chapter on how writing creates consciousness, I recognized that how we are taught to write is constrained by what we write with, the very technologies themselves. And how we do write in such a new medium such as blogging is tempered by how we are used to writing, and by the conventions we are expected to follow.

Currently, blogs are not so widely accepted as the equivalent as academic writing. It is so new in the history of writing, that standards of formal academic writing are maintained by peer review boards to ensure quality of presentation, to set very clear expectations for writers and readers of journals. Writing an academic paper about blogging, in my limited experience, is a frustrating experience.

(Move your mouse over the link to view the text) It is like asking the cat to be a dog.

How can blogging be demonstrated under the constraints of the writing conventions of a formal journal, when the very journal prevents the use of the texturing blogging makes possible? (Move your mouse over the link ‘texturing’ to view the overlying text)

 

So much of what blogging offers enables can be best demonstrated through the blogging tool, not other tools. Editing changes, such as the strikethrough, combined with the italicized text, can be used, as in this case, to shift ideas in mid-sentence, offering valuable insights for the students as they draft and revise their work. 2

The introduction of blogging into instruction is quite disruptive, requiring a discussion about what constitutes writing, and what should be done to develop skills in connective writing online in its various forms.

To date, blogging is simple, amounting to some use of links, photos, and a couple comments. In this post, I am demonstrating a number of techniques that can added to academic blogging so that it separates blogging from other earlier formats, creating a new genre with its own set of rules and conventions.

By combining footnotes, comments, and title tags, in addition to a number of techniques to signal changes of register and voice,  to enhance student reflection on their own work over time, the original intent of these techniques are shifted from known standards of use, to a more fluid, flexible set of rules, where learners can be free to experiment and be creative.

The focus of blogging can be both the individual learner, to begin thinking beyond the two-dimensional writing space, and blog by being aware that one can add texture through layering and linking (third dimensional writing ) 3 as well as be aware that one can track and monitor and coordinate one’ own blogging efforts for emergent themes over time (fourth dimensional writing).

  1. I first came across this idea in Lilia Efimova’s blog, when she was referring to the classifying of posts using similar tags and adding posts to categories. ↩
  2. I have seen the use of the strikethrough repeatedly in other bloggers’ post, but have only used it myself for the first time in this post. ↩
  3. three-dimensional visualization of blogging activity and network-building has already begun, but is limited to date to the two-dimensional screen ↩
Blogging Skills, reflections on theory

High-Stakes Reflective Blogging within Cohorts

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This is a follow-up to Jen Ross’ excellent comment, which I insert here:

…from my point of view the danger isn’t so much ridicule and indifference as a construction of a writing self that ‘hides its own mechanisms’ – that pretends there is no audience and no strategic choices being made for the benefit of that audience. I’d rather see writers in online environments (whether there by choice or not) embrace and explore addressivity than buy into the idea that they can, in this medium, truly ‘write for themselves’ only.

This really required me to stand back, and think again. I did not even consider this perspective, of the type of student that would knowingly distort one’s authenticity to construct a false self, or of a student willingly ignoring any audience and demonstrate a lack of self-critical judgement.

I had considered my own experience, struggling to be more authentic and probing, for my own sake. I had considered adult literacy learners, often blocked by needing to adopt a formal writing style irrelevant to their real-life contexts.

I addressed some of these concerns about addressivity in an earlier post  and another related post on student blogging roles, yet the issue about how to address the extremes of the reluctant and the narcissistic bloggers is crucial for instructors, and how they compare with what I consider to be autonomous, social, reluctant, and defensive bloggers, needs further exploration.

This is indeed a starting point, a draft to clarify some differences between how student bloggers (and likely, faculty, too, for that matter) perceive their adopted roles, how they adopt a perspective before they even begin to start blogging. For many, under differing circumstances, they tend to shift between them.  It would be interesting to observe in hindsight how one has switched these roles, and perhaps speculate on reasons for the switching.

Jen covers  metaphors about the use of a mask while blogging, and this is an interesting common theme for both of us, as I have also done some blogging on the topic of blogging roles, or metaphors.

Narcissistic Blogger Autonomous Blogger Social Blogger Reluctant Blogger Defensive Blogger
Addressivity Indifferent  to audience Invites and welcomes audience Requires others as audience Overwhelmed by audience Apologetic or Attacking
 Compassion None- writes for oneself Minimal – Focus on self-interest Variable – conditional on others Minimal – over-concerned None – competitive, combative
Responsiveness  to Feedback by Others Absent Self-critical –Independent of Others Variable – Contingent on Others Internal – Critical of Self External –Critical of Others
Authenticity Distorted Independent Inter-subjective Hidden Distorted
Productivity Variable Optimal Variable Minimal Variable

I focus on the specific context of cohort blogging and elaborate further on roles I found myself adopting while engaging in reflections on academic blogging.

 

Uncategorized

Facilitating Mentoring Using Blogs

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Mentoring Process Using Blogs
Mentoring Process Using Blogs

 

First principles:

Encourage learners to embrace the role of becoming personal story-tellers to tell their own stories;

Empower learners to practice self-expression and build confidence to listen and speak with strong voices to self and others;

Model for learners the skills required to become expert students at knowledge construction processes;

Why Blogs?

What are the unique features of blogs that make it a more optimal tool for learning?

Blogs capture learners’ stories only when students are giving themselves permission to articulate ideas with passion.

This is not what is happening with group edublogs today.

In a typical group edublog setting, the majority of interactions are through the filter of a central authority, the instructor. Most interactions do not reflect what the students really feel or think. Emotional comments and feelings of frustration are commonly withheld by most learners concerned about the impression made on others. Most posts are carefully contrived guesses at what the expert assessor thinks is the best way to post, consequently rewarded for grades. These guesses and calculations made by student bloggers are based on a list of cues provided by the instructor. Careful attention is given to how others interact, what script (tone, style, language) is used when a post is successful, that is, when it has been commented on by the instructor. Furthermore, students calculate the likelihood of creating an orphaned post, a post that receives no comments whatsoever, despite the amount of time spent carefully organizing the thoughts. Orphaned posts, unsurprisingly, are to be avoided.

Oftentimes, within a group blogging environment, those students who do not experiment, express ideas openly, digress, or complain, are rewarded. The student perspective of tentativeness and guarded, calculating blogging is mirrored by the instructor’s approach to blogging, in that there is an absence of playfulness, of wit, of openness to dialogue and discussion. This selective guardedness on the part of the instructor extends to beyond the group, where no outsider is allowed to engage in conversation with the participants. Attempts by outsiders to build rapport is halted by silence. By remaining silent to outsiders, instructors model the expectation that the students should do the same.

 

Typically, in a group blog setting, learners are told to review specific texts, then answer specific questions. Everyone answers the same questions so specifically given the parameters, that by the fifth student’s post, most of what needs to be discussed has been already covered. In groups of between 3 and 5 learners, this would be fine, as students could then build on each others’ ideas, given more elaborate instructions, examples of past students’ posts ont he same topic, and the feedback of both the instructor and several outside guest experts volunteering to join the discussions.

What in fact, happens, however, is that students go into panic mode, and many do a loss/benefit calculation, coming up with a list of strategies:

1. post an inane comment “yes, I agree with John”

2. engage in repeating most of what has already been said,

3. remain silent, making sure to participate early in the next post cycle rather than lose face,

4. give apologies, and state you have been busy,

5. make excuses that you have not read the article, and adopt the role of reviewer of what the posters have contributed,

6. get frustrated, and go into silent mode, calculating that the time and energy spent on the “stupid” blogging activity is not worth the grades assigned to it anyways, and devote the time to the other activities.

Using Blogs for Adult Literacy learners

For Adult Literacy Learners

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Oftentimes, the questions about using blogs have to do with how they fit in with the regular instruction of classrooms, or what sets them apart from other online tools as a medium of instruction. This is a frank discussion about how and why I use blogs with adult literacy learners. For me, the blogging tool is intended as a voluntary supplement that invites an extended conversation between myself and my students.

Enter the Teacher

I work with learners to outline their ideas, clarify their topic sentences and theses for their writing assignments. I cover the learning outcomes of what is expected when writing a number of different paragraphs and essays. I guide students to clarify their ideas, and expect them to do research, ask questions, and engage in planning and goal-setting. For example, students work with me to develop ideas based on graphic organizers I have provided for them, based on conversations about the topic. The in-class activities are aimed at guiding the learners to sit down and write.

The students in my English classroom sit down to write after discussing their ideas, or planning the ideas in a number of ways. Their first draft often requires additional crafting, and I provide feedback about word choice, sentence structure, and organization of ideas.

Some time ago, I realized students were getting blocked in their writing. They did all the exercises in the book, scored well on tests for grammar and spelling, but could not commit ideas into written form.  I had to shift the writing instruction to focus less on the step-by-step exercises of the textbook, and allow the students to discover the writing processes for themselves. I decided I would try asking one learner, who had been having challenges with completing writing assignments, had stopped progressing, and was close to dropping the class, to put the textbook away. I explained I would guide her through the writing, and asked her a number of critical questions:

  1.  If you had the choice, what would you like to write about?
  2. Is this writing something you want to show to others?
  3. Is this a piece of writing you want to keep?
  4. Is this a work in progress, something you intend to return to later in other courses?
  5. Is this work something you are interested in learning about?
  6. Is this a project you want to write several drafts for?

 

These questions are critical to determine if the student is engaged meaningfully in their writing activities. If not, I ask them to choose a topic they want to write about, but engage in a dialogue to identify their interests, and ask them to inform me and others about something that they are passionate about. Depending on the learner, this process can take time, and the learners are sometimes confused about what is expected, and frustrated at the change of topic, and the change in expectations.

Sometimes learners cannot write without an authentic purpose, and without an audience (other than writing for the teacher, which, for many learners, does not really count). Ask them what energizes them, and then negotiate with them to explore that topic in different ways, and give them alternatives for what to write… and students often ask…

Is it okay for me to write more than one assignment on the same topic?

I assure them that would be fine, and suggest that, if they want, they can also add photos and pictures to the assignment, and use what talk about what they are writing about for their presentations. If they choose, they could even talk to someone outside class about the topic.

This one learner came up with a story about her grandfather, and his trek up a mountain as the leader of an expedition.

Enter Computers

In this case, the learner used the computer to write up her drafts. She brought in photos. She summarized her notes from her face-to-face discussions, and incorporated them into her story. It took a couple weeks, and she finished the first draft of eight pages.

I have students use the computers in class to use the English CD to practice grammar, use the word processing software to draft their ideas, use the browser to surf the web to search for resources, prepare formal essays and create Power Point presentations.

Oftentimes, students bring in their net books or laptops. With this more advanced group of learners, I begin discussions with one learner, and I notice that other students are listening, so I encourage them to jump in, and engage in impromptu discussions about each others’ papers, contributing ideas and asking questions. As a Computer/English instructor, I try to ask students to apply their computer skills to their English assignments, and encourage them to use more examples of formatting, and try to insert images, tables, and graphs into their work.

I encourage students to use USB flash drives to minimize printing, so they are constantly practicing file management, and naming folders and files effectively, and saving files to multiple drives for backup. I encourage students to send me their drafts as attachments in emails. So students send me a copy, and save copies to their USB drive, the local school drive, and to the documents folder on their own net book or laptop.

Enter Blogs

Because blogging is largely a solitary activity, requiring focus and concentration, oftentimes the use of blogs is best for independent, self-paced learners within a learning setting where the instructor supervises learners at multiple levels. In this setting, the student can come in to the classroom with their net book or laptop, connect to the WIFI network, and begin composing a post on the word processing software of their choice, get feedback from their instructor on mechanics and structure, then post the ideas on to a blog.

What makes the blog stand out as a writing tool is how it extends the feedback loop, allowing multiple iterations of the same draft to a number of posts. To publish a blog post, the student needs to select tags that act as keywords, choose a posting category, and can also insert photos. Unlike regular writing assignments, students can insert links to other web pages, others’ blog posts, or to even one’s own earlier blog posts. The ability to connect this post to other ideas in other posts is one fundamental difference between blogging and essays. In addition, blog posts enable others, such as the instructor, fiends, peers, and even the individual learner, to engage in commenting.

Blogs also incorporate other features that students use to enhance their own learning. For example, students can select and insert links of favourite resources onto their page, called blog-rolls. As the number of posts increase, students are able to navigate through their own archived content, or search using a Tag Cloud or by Categories.

Blogging enables a different way of writing. Typically, students are told to write with essays in mind: a beginning, a middle, and an end. There are specific ways to cite and format sources in an essay. There needs to be a thesis. In the case of blogging, however, posts are often unstructured, disjointed, fuzzy, exploratory, rambling – but taken as a whole, capture the dialogue between the teacher and the student as they progress through the steps of idea generation, resource collection, analysis, and meaning-making that essay-writing cannot.  With essay writing, the end-product is evaluated; whereas in blogging, the writing process is analyzed, and reflected upon. For essay-writing, the production is the significant unit of assessment; for blogging, it is the collection of pause-points that are considered significant. Rather than focus on commenting about the post’s spelling and grammar errors, teacher’s comments on blog posts should instead focus on extending and expanding the topic, asking questions, and reacting to the student’s message. This is an opportunity to elaborate and reinforce some of the discussions from class. Teacher could comment on how well photos are used, how descriptive the tag or category is, or the usefulness of the linked resource. The teacher can refer to additional links, to examples of how to use different fonts, or bold text, or different ways to switch voices from academic narrator to student, use of dashes or brackets to insert additional details, or partition sections of text using different colours to show breaks between what is clear and what is fuzzy. In effect, the commenting feature can augment and complement classroom instruction, and open an additional feedback channel unlike any other between the students and the teacher.

Blogging addresses an authentic audience. Unlike typical classroom writing, blogging opens up the possibility of writing for more than just the teacher. It provides more meaning as it is owned writing. This ownership of the message shifts the dynamic between the student and teacher from learner and evaluator to apprentice and expert. It opens up the possibility for a more open exchange, a greater flexibility for students to make revisions, and a more meaningful and significant content-creation experience.

The blogging tool enables a dialogue between the teacher and the student. It is the extension of the classroom, not intended to replace the necessary teaching moments that occur with Face-to-face classrooms, but to extend and complement them in an online setting.

Canadian academic bloggers, writing and blogging

Sensemaking: The Ideas of Konrad Glogowski

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This post is an example of engaging in sense-making, weaving ideas from one source into existing ideas and engaging in critical inquiry and analysis.

Sources: (drawing from Tony Bates’ academic blogging format)

Konrad Glogowski’s Blog of Proximal Development

Glenn Groulx’s Overview of Academic Blogging

Konrad Glogowski worked with grade eight learners, and used blogging to encourage critical thinking. His blog is an example of how one practitioner has used his blog for his own action research, as he summarized his own reflections and insights for himself, as well as others.

I am interested in this blog because his ideas about assessment are close to how I have conceptualized (just in theory) how to use blogs for adult literacy learners. In particular, the challenge is to identify how blogging can aid fundamental level literacy learners (at about grades 6-8). I have been looking for ideas on effective assessment tools for this specific group of learners.

Here is a link to a personal progress chart (shown below) for grade eight learners as a form of assessment of their blogging. Interestingly, it draws on some of the ideas from Heimstra on individualized instruction, particularly learner contracts.

In particular, Glogowski uses a form that asks learners to reflect on goal-setting, identifying their own exemplars of practice, resources “tapped into”, other peers’ blogs they have been reading, next steps, mapping own progress on a timeline, and a elaborate meta-cognitive exercise describing past, present, and future learning.

blogging-assessment-glogowski

 

How could I apply it to academic blogging, in the context of AU Landing? How could I apply this to my research with adult literacy learners?

The form above could be re-purposed as a blog post form, so that I provide a template that students can use when posting a reflective post as part of their assessment.

For example, “entries I am really proud of”, is similar to piling, in which the learner selects posts that showcase best work, and uses a tag called exemplar.

“Resources I have tapped into” is similar to path-finding, where students identify the resources used to develop their ideas.

“Classmates whose work I have been reading” is similar to the steps awareness/articulation in which learners identify and describe the resources available to them within the learning group.

“What I need/plan to do next” is similar to self-efficacy (goal-setting) and self-judgement (looking back, looking forward).

The use of the timeline requires learners to self-monitor their progress. Something like that for student bloggers as they are progressing through their blogging activities would be amazing, so students could see where they are on their learning roadmap, and make adjustments as required.

I think that the rubric introduced by Glogowski is excellent for encouraing learners to engage in self-judgement and self-observation, providing them with essential meta-cognitive skills required for identity construction and self-regulation as learners.

Scanned Work-Notes for Faculty PD?

As a tool, Glogowski uses a scanned image of a student’s notes, and adds his own comments to the chart. This is an amazing way for instructors to track progress of learners. The actual work-notes would be likely behind a LMS rather than public, though. These types of artefacts are really useful for faculty PD when educators can sit down together as a team and go over students’ notes and their own comments to them.

In addition, I want to review Glogowski’s self assessment sheet 

“Evidence of Data-Gathering” is very similar to Berry-Picking, Self-Reaction, and Self-Judgement, in that it asks learners to consider their sources of data, and evaluate if the factual data is sufficient. In addition, they need to identify gaps, and select and formaulate strategies for overcoming the gaps. I think that requiring student bloggers to assess their data-gathering result, and reflect on the stratgies they have used, are worthwhile activities.

“Evidence of Understanding” is similar to sense-making, but seems quite nebulous. In this case, the evidence seems to be the act of praphrasing, summarizing, describe, explain, and outline others’ ideas. This is probably the greatest are for potential development for educators to provide the required scaffolding for successful student blogging.

“Evidence of Reflection/Analysis” is similar to weaving, sense-making, and to some extent, self-presentation. Glogowski explains that evidence of reflection/analysis consists of judging, critiquing, evaluating, and comparing, among others. My tentative theory just now is that the act of critical analysis is an extremely complex mega-skill, involving a host of smaller processes that work together. While blogging about a topic of interest, for example, you are motivated to re-examine, and build on, ideas, just as I am doing, drawing other ideas into my mental schema of the moment, and comparing and contrasting the two sets of ideas side by side, seeing if there are connections, and seeing where the ideas diverge and contradict one another.

This, for me, is the greatest challenge, and greatest potential, for using the blogging tool: for learning how to engage in mature critical inquiry. I realize, though, that a new blogging process taxonomy needs to emerge before the tool will be used in its own right as a tool for learning.