[CITASA] using blogs with your courses
Does anyone here have experience using blogs with students?
Currently I am using a simple blogspot blog with my seminar class, and I
feel it is working well, but many things can work ok on a small scale that
fail horribly as they grow.
http://group-processes-social-change.blogspot.com/
However. . . . . . I will have 400 students in Intro to Soc winter quarter--
and will need to modify my strategies to adapt to the larger context.
any advice and pointers are appreciated.
ted
--
Howard T. Welser
Assistant Professor
Department of Sociology & Anthropology
Ohio University
Bentley Annex 109
Athens, Ohio 45701
740.597-2722
Hi Ted,
A few years ago a colleague and I put together an online resource for
blogging in the classroom. It's online at: http://blogsforlearning.msu.edu/
We haven't updated it in a while, but most of the material is still
relevant, and there's a piece specifically on blogging in large
classes by Alex Halavais.
Good luck!
Nicole
On Oct 21, 2009, at 11:49 AM, Howard Welser wrote:
Does anyone here have experience using blogs with students?
Currently I am using a simple blogspot blog with my seminar class,
and I feel it is working well, but many things can work ok on a
small scale that fail horribly as they grow.
http://group-processes-social-change.blogspot.com/
However. . . . . . I will have 400 students in Intro to Soc winter
quarter-- and will need to modify my strategies to adapt to the
larger context.
any advice and pointers are appreciated.
ted
--
Howard T. Welser
Assistant Professor
Department of Sociology & Anthropology
Ohio University
Bentley Annex 109
Athens, Ohio 45701
740.597-2722
CITASA mailing list
CITASA@list.citasa.org
http://list.citasa.org/mailman/listinfo/citasa_list.citasa.org
Nicole Ellison, PhD
nellison@msu.edu
My only thought is to have a separate blog for each discussion section...I assume with 400 students you will have discussion sections but maybe that's not a good assumption in these penny-pinching days. Then the TAs could be responsible for guiding students & curating their content.
I am a big surprised to see Google Ads on your course blog. Google Ads are notorious for just paying pennies and it does add an element of commercialization to your educational offering. Are you including them intentionally or was the blog set up by another person? Just curious if it's part of the pedagogy for the course.
Liz Pullen
nwjerseyliz@yahoo.com
From: Howard Welser welser@ohio.edu
To: citasa@list.citasa.org
Sent: Wed, October 21, 2009 11:49:56 AM
Subject: [CITASA] using blogs with your courses
Does anyone here have experience using blogs with students?
Currently I am using a simple blogspot blog with my seminar class, and I feel it is working well, but many things can work ok on a small scale that fail horribly as they grow.
http://group-processes-social-change.blogspot.com/
However. . . . . . I will have 400 students in Intro to Soc winter quarter-- and will need to modify my strategies to adapt to the larger context.
any advice and pointers are appreciated.
ted
--
Howard T. Welser
Assistant Professor
Department of Sociology & Anthropology
Ohio University
Bentley Annex 109
Athens, Ohio 45701
740.597-2722
Thanks to all for helpful advice already.
Offline, Tom G. recommended WordpressMU + buddypress extension, which I will
check out.
I am excited to read the resources suggested by Nicole Ellison.
Liz Pullen raised a couple of important issues. Although I will have a
couple of TAs helping me, there are no discussion sections. (we make time
for group work outside of class so we do get some smaller scale interaction,
but yes, it is a big class).
I do like the idea of establishing different blogs, with TA moderation,
which might be organized to reflect substantive areas from the course.
I agree that the integration of the google ads is a bit jarring, but it also
raises some really interesting questions. The use of the adsense ads has
been a course content motivated experiment. I talk about it a little on the
blog:
http://group-processes-social-change.blogspot.com/2009/10/ya-know-what-doughnut.html
So far-- the benefits seem to outweigh the costs, but it is an evolving
topic of discussion in the class. It may sound strange but the fact that
our work generated ad revenue has had an empowering effect (somehow we were
validated?). Anyways,students have picked up their pace of submission, are
more interested in sharing it with others. I also recently added google
analytics to the site, and we are going to discuss the preliminary reports
on readership and usage that they provide, while discussing possible
implications of the availability of that sort of data both for the producer
of the site and 3rd parties.
Also, in light of the course blogging experiment two students have started
blogs of their own, one to help manage a band and the other as a social
commentary blog.
Finally-- I would say that the ads act as symbols of the commercialization
of the education environment, but they also raise the notion that the
intellectual production of student is often either wasted (never reaching
beyond an assignment) or appropriated by the institution for prestige
enhancement. I like the idea of recapturing some of the that productivity
for the benefit of the class as a whole, and also planting the idea that the
students themselves might want to build their own web pages, blogs, apps,
etc. beyond the course.
Thanks again to everyone, and I suspect I have already missed several
comments because this email took a while to write.
ted
--
Howard T. Welser
Assistant Professor
Department of Sociology & Anthropology
Ohio University
Bentley Annex 109
Athens, Ohio 45701
740.597-2722
Professor Welzer,
It is worth asking the question as to whether or not your "ad" sponsors
will be themselves be monitoring and evaluating the blogs their revenue
is supporting and if so, for what purpose. Should such ads be other
than passive in nature and include links to surveys in addition to the
subject itself, they may be using the information to obtain marketing
demographic data from your students. Know what you are getting and know
what is being pushed out to your students. Remember, If you require
their participation of your blogasphere, they need to know what the
rules of the road are to include disabling cookies and such from your
blog sponsors. My opinions and comments are mine alone and are merely
intended to detail the minutiae involved in the environment you are
working in. Satisfy yourself. Better to be the Mechanic than the Tool.
And, It is a poor mechanic that blames his tools.
David Louden
Program Manager and Senior Project Developer
Mission Technologies & Training (Operations) Department
Intelligence Solutions Division
National Solutions Business Unit
L-3 Communications
301 575-3426
240 373-3828
"Teaming with the customer for success
and Owning the future."
From: citasa-bounces@list.citasa.org
[mailto:citasa-bounces@list.citasa.org] On Behalf Of Howard Welser
Sent: Wednesday, October 21, 2009 1:11 PM
To: citasa@list.citasa.org
Subject: Re: [CITASA] using blogs with your courses
Thanks to all for helpful advice already.
Offline, Tom G. recommended WordpressMU + buddypress extension, which I
will check out.
I am excited to read the resources suggested by Nicole Ellison.
Liz Pullen raised a couple of important issues. Although I will have a
couple of TAs helping me, there are no discussion sections. (we make
time for group work outside of class so we do get some smaller scale
interaction, but yes, it is a big class).
I do like the idea of establishing different blogs, with TA moderation,
which might be organized to reflect substantive areas from the course.
I agree that the integration of the google ads is a bit jarring, but it
also raises some really interesting questions. The use of the adsense
ads has been a course content motivated experiment. I talk about it a
little on the blog:
http://group-processes-social-change.blogspot.com/2009/10/ya-know-what-d
oughnut.html
So far-- the benefits seem to outweigh the costs, but it is an evolving
topic of discussion in the class. It may sound strange but the fact
that our work generated ad revenue has had an empowering effect (somehow
we were validated?). Anyways,students have picked up their pace of
submission, are more interested in sharing it with others. I also
recently added google analytics to the site, and we are going to discuss
the preliminary reports on readership and usage that they provide, while
discussing possible implications of the availability of that sort of
data both for the producer of the site and 3rd parties.
Also, in light of the course blogging experiment two students have
started blogs of their own, one to help manage a band and the other as a
social commentary blog.
Finally-- I would say that the ads act as symbols of the
commercialization of the education environment, but they also raise the
notion that the intellectual production of student is often either
wasted (never reaching beyond an assignment) or appropriated by the
institution for prestige enhancement. I like the idea of recapturing
some of the that productivity for the benefit of the class as a whole,
and also planting the idea that the students themselves might want to
build their own web pages, blogs, apps, etc. beyond the course.
Thanks again to everyone, and I suspect I have already missed several
comments because this email took a while to write.
ted
--
Howard T. Welser
Assistant Professor
Department of Sociology & Anthropology
Ohio University
Bentley Annex 109
Athens, Ohio 45701
740.597-2722
I am using google groups for the five three-person teams who are
designing and conducting a survey in my intro to research methods
course. Each team creates a group. I had the team leader add me on as a
member of the group. I only check in when asked questions and
double-check once every two days or so that everyone on a team is
participating (participation reflects 5% of their assignment grade). It
seems to be working swimmingly. Since this is the first time I have
done this (and the students know that it's the first time), I will ask
for an evaluation from the students at the end of their project. But,
thus, the informal feedback as been very favorable.
Alice Robbin
Quoting Liz nwjerseyliz@yahoo.com:
My only thought is to have a separate blog for each discussion
section...I assume with 400 students you will have discussion
sections but maybe that's not a good assumption in these
penny-pinching days. Then the TAs could be responsible for guiding
students & curating their content.
I am a big surprised to see Google Ads on your course blog. Google
Ads are notorious for just paying pennies and it does add an element
of commercialization to your educational offering. Are you including
them intentionally or was the blog set up by another person? Just
curious if it's part of the pedagogy for the course.
Liz Pullen
nwjerseyliz@yahoo.com
From: Howard Welser welser@ohio.edu
To: citasa@list.citasa.org
Sent: Wed, October 21, 2009 11:49:56 AM
Subject: [CITASA] using blogs with your courses
Does anyone here have experience using blogs with students?
Currently I am using a simple blogspot blog with my seminar class,
and I feel it is working well, but many things can work ok on a small
scale that fail horribly as they grow.
http://group-processes-social-change.blogspot.com/
However. . . . . . I will have 400 students in Intro to Soc winter
quarter-- and will need to modify my strategies to adapt to the
larger context.
any advice and pointers are appreciated.
ted
--
Howard T. Welser
Assistant Professor
Department of Sociology & Anthropology
Ohio University
Bentley Annex 109
Athens, Ohio 45701
740.597-2722
I mostly have students set up personal blogs as portfolios for the
work they did over the semester and to host any projects which we
might share.
Samuel Tobin
NSSR/NSGS
On Wed, Oct 21, 2009 at 2:52 PM, arobbin@indiana.edu wrote:
I am using google groups for the five three-person teams who are designing
and conducting a survey in my intro to research methods course. Each team
creates a group. I had the team leader add me on as a member of the group. I
only check in when asked questions and double-check once every two days or
so that everyone on a team is participating (participation reflects 5% of
their assignment grade). It seems to be working swimmingly. Since this is
the first time I have done this (and the students know that it's the first
time), I will ask for an evaluation from the students at the end of their
project. But, thus, the informal feedback as been very favorable.
Alice Robbin
Quoting Liz nwjerseyliz@yahoo.com:
My only thought is to have a separate blog for each discussion
section...I assume with 400 students you will have discussion
sections but maybe that's not a good assumption in these
penny-pinching days. Then the TAs could be responsible for guiding
students & curating their content.
I am a big surprised to see Google Ads on your course blog. Google
Ads are notorious for just paying pennies and it does add an element
of commercialization to your educational offering. Are you including
them intentionally or was the blog set up by another person? Just
curious if it's part of the pedagogy for the course.
Liz Pullen
nwjerseyliz@yahoo.com
From: Howard Welser welser@ohio.edu
To: citasa@list.citasa.org
Sent: Wed, October 21, 2009 11:49:56 AM
Subject: [CITASA] using blogs with your courses
Does anyone here have experience using blogs with students?
Currently I am using a simple blogspot blog with my seminar class,
and I feel it is working well, but many things can work ok on a small
scale that fail horribly as they grow.
http://group-processes-social-change.blogspot.com/
However. . . . . . I will have 400 students in Intro to Soc winter
quarter-- and will need to modify my strategies to adapt to the
larger context.
any advice and pointers are appreciated.
ted
--
Howard T. Welser
Assistant Professor
Department of Sociology & Anthropology
Ohio University
Bentley Annex 109
Athens, Ohio 45701
740.597-2722
CITASA mailing list
CITASA@list.citasa.org
http://list.citasa.org/mailman/listinfo/citasa_list.citasa.org
Howard Welser wrote:
Does anyone here have experience using blogs with students?
I was in one class that used a blog few years ago, and I have fond
memories of it.
Here's my blog from the past:
http://pioflog.blogspot.com/
Note the class was a grad class, set up for ~10 students, each of us had
their own blog (they are linked from a sidepanel in my blog if anybody
wants to check them out; note that the course instructor had a blog of
his own as well).
I am currently experimenting with teaching an undergrad class of 50
students, they are all contributing to one blog:
http://da1globsoc09.blogspot.com/
I explain the assignment in my introductory post
http://da1globsoc09.blogspot.com/2009/08/introduction-to-blog.html
One blog makes it easier to coordinate and grade students actions (but
note that Blogger has a limit of 100 editors per blog). What to do with
100+ editor classes - I am not sure, but I'd probably use a forum or a
wiki* instead of a blog in this case. That said, if one has TAs to help,
the approach may be different.
The reason I am using blog is that I wanted to update the old syllabus I
was given (which required students to post mini essays on a courseweb
forum). Courseweb is not very user friendly and is not something the
students will ever run into again in their lives (unless they become
teachers...), so why not introduce them to the 21st century and blogs
(and yes, quite a few of them are not that familiar with blogs...) which
are and likely will be a part of cyberspace mainstream for years to come?
Regarding some arguments mentioned by others, I do think that the blogs
should be public. If one wants to hold a private discussion, blogs are
not the right medium - I'd suggest creating a closed wiki or forum
instead (again, preferably not on Courseweb - it's cumbersome to use).
My driving philosophy ere is: the more realistic experience in the
classroom, resembling the tools they may find in their workplace in the
future, the better. And private blogs are (as far as I know) rare both
on the net and in the workplaces (while private forums are more common
online, and private wikis are common in workplaces).
Will the students be less inventive because they are afraid to write on
a public forum? Interesting point, but one that can be counteracted by
the use of nicknames, first names, initials and such, all of which
ensure at least a moderate modicum of online privacy. As a
counterargument to why make it public, I think the students may be more
motivated to write creatively on a public forum, as they can try to
attract real world attention and create a real digital artifact they can
come back to later or show off to friends. It does seem like a double
edged sword, certainly, but I think that when combined with some form of
anonymity the benefits should outweigh the costs. I am now off to read
Andrea's thoughts (thanks Amy for linking them!).
*I've been using wikis for my courses much more often than blogs. For
those interested in teaching with wikis, check out my article at
http://itdl.org/Journal/Jan_07/article02.htm (I am now slowly working on
a follow up paper to it).
--
Piotr Konieczny
"The problem about Wikipedia is, that it just works in reality, not in
theory."