Blogs 101

Blogs Do you ever ask students to keep a chronological record of events, a diary, or a logbook?

Do you ever ask students to share their writing for peer review? Do you ever ask students to write critically about current events, politics, industry trends, or policy? Do you ever ask students to synthesize the theory they learn in class with what is happening outside of class? Do you want to write about academia? Have you ever considered blogs?

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The word blog is a combination of the words web and log - weblog. It is a running chronological list of web entries like a “drawer full of folders” (Zawilinski, 2009, p.651).

Students can post entries, reply to posts, make comments, and rate posts. It shares similarities with discussion forums and journals, but it is quite unique in its own right; it is much more open-ended and public. We can blog announcements, reflections, showcase pieces, reading responses, current issues and events, and even academic research.

Variations None.

Examples Use your imagination. What could your students blog about? What would be an appropriate blog for your students to follow? Only you know what would be authentic to your field of study, your curriculum, and your students. To get started, consider these ideas: Visual Arts •Gallery events •Urban art trends •Film reviews •Technology advances in design Health & Community Studies •Campus health bulletins •Health research •Policy implications •Social outreach Science & Technology •Design charrettes or techarrettes •Environmental issues •Emerging technologies •Trades legislation Business Administration •Case competitions •Global economic issues •Sustainable business solutions 178

•Niche tourism Humanities & Social Sciences •Academic life •Reading response •Current events •Global trends

Merits Blogs are a new information literacy tool. They can foster higher order thinking, collaboration, and possibly social change. Students are blogging, and so are professors.

While primarily for writing, blogs can have rich media like pictures, video, and audio. They are an emerging trend in academic publication.

Internet Literacy. Blogging is a relatively new literacy that emphasizes higher order thinking. Students need to gather, analyze, and synthesize information critically in their blog post. It might be to respond to something. It might be to upload and share something. It might be solve something (Zawilinski, 2009).

Higher Order Thinking. A blog can help students develop reading comprehension skills through open-ended prompts to encourage interpretation and persuasion. First, they can build background knowledge to prepare to read. Second, they can read with the prompts gained from that prior knowledge. Third, they can clarify and summarize their reading by connecting the background knowledge and first impressions of the reading. Finally, students can share their blog posts for discussion which synthesizes diverse perspectives and captures rich exchanges of talk and text (Zawilinski, 2009).

Collaboration. Students can share their blog with their professor, their classmates, and industry partners. Through the sharing of student comments and various forms of audio and visual media, blogging can improve writing, communication, collaboration, and problem solving. Blogging not only captures ideas and reflections on concepts, but it can also link the formal and the informal. Sharing one’s blog with a broader audience can break down barriers. It can bridge the gap between in and out of school literacies (Zawilinski, 2009).

Professors, at Loyalist College, used blogging with their media studies students in several ways. They used a live Twitter feed to report news from the Kingston court house to the college news room to immediately update the QNetNews website. They used WordPress to

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reflect on television magazine production for the QuinteView documentary show. They used Facebook and Pinterest to communicate and collaborate on bumper designs for the Sparkie Awards - an annual ‘oscars’ night to celebrate student achievement (Michelle Grimes, personal communication, March 29, 2012). Read a full Monica Rankin description of their action research.

The Twitter Experiment

The Guardian

Three Little Pigs

Live Feed. Some professors run a live blogging feed during their face-to-face (F2F) class. This keeps students engaged with the lecture and discussion via their mobile devices. For students who are shy or simply do not get a chance to participate in class, it gives them an opportunity to contribute. It acts a repository of the class discussion for review and posterity; it also allows the conversation to continue even after the class has finished. For students, who drift to their social media during class, the live feed might bring them back from their socializing to the class!

Social Change. Although there is very little quantitative data about the use of Facebook or Twitter in education, the obvious potential of building networks through communication and collaboration exists. In its purest form, social media blogging might be used to create social networks for research, change, awareness, and advocacy at a local and global level. For example, if a student can connect with an organization, they have the potential to learn from as well as to influence the audience that follows that blog. The potential to conduct action research in this area is vast.

Accessibility. Blogging would appeal primarily to linguistic learners. It is definitely a great tool to develop writing skills. Yet, if students use audio and visual media, then it would appeal to a variety of learning styles, abilities, and English as a Second Language (ESL) students. Visual learners and art students, may prefer social media like Pinterest to blog about images (CAST, 2012; Gardner, 2011). Adult online learners can blog any time, any place, and any pace (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2012).

Publication (Blogademia). While formal publication is still the gold standard in academia, some professors blog about their research. This allows them to reach a broader audience in an open access forum. Few people read journal articles with the exception of other 180

academic researchers. To the layperson, the message can be difficult to decipher from the style of research writing; many journal articles also require a paid subscription, which limits the audience who reads it even more. Lastly, it can take years for research to progress to a formal publication and even longer for the message to evoke change. With a blog the audience can keep abreast of the potential breakthroughs as they happen!

Professional Reputation. Not only is blogging an emerging trend for publication, but it is also a way to build a scholarly reputation. Professors can post updates on research, industry trends, or changes to policy. Students can follow and interact with their professor’s academic blog, too. Building one’s brand online also engages peer exchange of ideas. It is a place that fosters the academic freedom to post creative and reflective thought (Kirkup, 2010).

Challenges With Internet literacy come many challenges. Blogging is still a relatively new genre on the verge of acceptance even in scholarly writing. We need to teach students about privacy online and respecting the tenants of Netiquette. in particular, we need to be wary of rants and blogs, especially about academic life and academia. The more open-ended the topic, the more willing students are to engage.

Open-Ended. Not all students will enjoy blogging. While we do need to provide grading criteria to students, Zawilinski found that students wanted to write about what they wanted to write about (2009). We may still need to provide prompts, but students want to post their own work, post their own questions, and post their own open-ended topics (Zawilinski, 2009).

Netiquette. Some blogs fall into the category of rants. Professors and students should be very aware of their audience and any repercussions of ranting too boldly in the wrong arena. Likewise, students need to be aware of trolls - bloggers looking to stir up trouble and pick arguments. We need to watch sarcasm and inciting angry posts to avoid flame wars.

Students should exercise Netiquette in their comments - avoid cyberbullying, trolling, or flaming. If students are using shareware blogs, they may want to set their privacy settings to include only their professor, select classmates in an assigned group, the entire class, or even the entire world (Shea, 2004).

Privacy. Most journal articles speak to the privacy issues and boundaries between the student and professor. Students who use Facebook and Twitter to build their social identity 181

may not want classwork or homework to creep into their online world. As professors, if we choose to interact with our students in these domains, it is a good idea to have a personal profile for your personal life and a professional profile for interacting with your students.

Some schools completely ban all social media on campus and any kind of interaction between professor and student via these types of websites. If you do use social media with your students, make sure that they understand how to maintain their privacy and the importance of protecting their identity, location, and personal information online.

Rant. Many mainstream bloggers simply rant about current issues. Constructive balanced critique can lead to informed change. However, critiquing one’s own academic institution or discipline too strongly may result in backlash or fallout (Kirkup, 2010). A rant may also invite flame wars and trolls. On the other hand, a well-argued and highly stylized rant can be very effective!

Blogademia. One challenge with this new academic literacy is it does not count as a formal publication. Professors do not receive credit for blogging. Another challenge is the pros and cons of blogging about academic life. Whether reflective or not, blogging about much needed change in academia, especially within one’s own institution, could lead to repercussions (Kirkup, 2010). A blog calling for change must come from researched unbiased frame of mind, not an emotional one.

In 2009, a blog called, Night Jack - An English Detective, received the Orwell Prize for political writing. This legitimized blogging as a form of academic writing (Kirkup, 2010).

However, that same year, the constable, who anonymously wrote the blog, was forced to reveal his identity. The blog was subsequently shut down. He was disciplined by his police force for breaching the standards of professional behaviour (BBC, 2009).

Instructional Design Use a backwards design approach. First, start with your learning outcomes. Second, create your assessments. Third, plan your instructional activities. Finally, choose a technology to enhance the lesson.

Design. Consider your curriculum; look carefully at your accreditation standards, graduate attributes, program learning outcomes, course learning outcomes, and lesson learning outcomes. Will a blog fulfill the learning outcomes? How will you evaluate what the students learn through a blog? What technologies will you and your students need to learn in order to keep a blog? Will a blog enhance the learning experience?

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Twitter,

Tumblr,

Develop. Review the kinds of blogging practice common in your field of study. Reflect on your own blogging practices in your academic and professional career. Research what technology platforms are common. If blogging is uncommon in your field, examine areas where blogging would benefit the students. Consider doing some action research to see if blogging works with your students or not.

WordPress

Weebly

EduBlog

Deliver. Decide what students will do before, during, and after the blogging activity. Before blogging, students might read an article, observe an event, or watch a play. While blogging, students can follow prompts for critical thinking. After they write their blogs, students can share their posts with others for discussion. The blogging activity should be authentic, active, and applied.

Technology Blogger

Pinterest

Browse the Internet or app store for blogging software. There are all kinds of shareware blogging sites. Consider potential social media blogs like Twitter, Tumblr, WordPress, EduBlog, or Google Blogger as well as virtual pinning sites like Pinterest to feature blogging activities.

With Facebook, students can post comments on their wall, upload photos and videos, find friends, chat, send email, and create an events page with a discussion forum. On Twitter, students can tweet a 140-character message under a hash tag feed, create a discussion forum, chat, or retweet. At Tumblr, students can customize their home page and add text, photos, videos, music, and links.

References BBC News. (2009, June 16). Force disciplines police blogger. BBC News. Retrieved from http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/8103731.stm Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST). (2012). Universal Design for Learning.

Retrieved from http://www.cast.org/index.html Gardner, H. (2011). Frames of mind: the theory of multiple intelligences (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Basic Books.

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kesmit3. (2009, May 02). The Twitter Experiment - Twitter in the Classroom [YouTube] [05:18]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/6WPVWDkF7U8 Kirkup, G. (2010). Academic blogging: Academic practice and academic integrity. London Review of Education 8(1), p.75-84.

Shea, V. (2004). Netiquette. Retrieved from http://www.albion.com/netiquette/book/ index.html Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and learning at a distance (5th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

The Guardian. (2012, February 29). Cannes Lion Award-Winning “Three Little Pigs advert” [YouTube] [02:01]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/vDGrfhJH1P4 Zawilinski, L. (2009). HOT blogging: A framework for blogging to promote higher order thinking. Reading Teacher, 62(8), p.650-661.

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