20 days + 19 people + 17 blogs = The Annals Success
Leigh Wolf
Abstract
This past summer I (along with Kathryn Dirkin) taught in the MSU College of Education's Masters of Arts in Technology (MAET) program in Plymouth, England. The MAET program is an immersive, intensive summer study targeted towards K-12 educators who are interested in learning how to integrate technology into their practice. The set of courses we taught covered three broad areas: technology, teaching and learning, and educational research. We focused on design patterns and models for using social software in the classroom, the construction of knowledge in online and face-to-face environments, in-school and out-of-school learning, exploring the role of information literacy, philosophical explorations of online technologies, issues of identity formation online, and research in online environments.
This past summer I (along with Kathryn Dirkin) taught in the MSU College of Education’s Masters of Arts in Technology (MAET) program in Plymouth, England. The MAET program is an immersive, intensive summer study targeted towards K-12 educators who are interested in learning how to integrate technology into their practice. The set of courses we taught covered three broad areas: technology, teaching and learning, and educational research. We focused on design patterns and models for using social software in the classroom, the construction of knowledge in online and face-to-face environments, in-school and out-of-school learning, exploring the role of information literacy, philosophical explorations of online technologies, issues of identity formation online, and research in online environments.
We met face-to-face from 8 am - 3 pm for four weeks (a total of 20 instructional days.) Students had four major projects during the summer study: an action research proposal, evaluations of technology materials and activities, personal portfolio/website and a group podcast. In addition to the major assignments, the students had nightly readings and non-graded assignments. With such an intense amount of work, reading and face-to-face time, how did blogs fit into the complicated puzzle? Maintaining a blog was one of the non-graded activities. From an instructional point of view, we approached the use of blogs very “organically.” We did request that the technology evaluations be posted to their blog and that any discussions regarding group work take place on the blog, however, we did not dictate a required number of postings or particular format for the blog posts. Reflecting back on the experience, here are some of the primary genres that emerged within the blogs:
As a ‘container’ for ideas…
During the four weeks, students were working on the individual and group projects. We encouraged them to use the blog as a notebook of sorts to jot down their ideas in an informal setting. This helped the students see the projects as a series of iterations and allowed us as instructors to give feedback at more meaningful points in the design process.
As an alternative discussion forum…
As others have noticed, using blogs to supplement class discussion was a very successful endeavor. Though we did not require students to blog on their nightly readings, many did. We used their postings as discussion starters in large group discussions. Some who were not vocal in class, commented on blog postings and used that as another outlet for discussion. Kathryn and I also used the comments to dig deeper, clarify points of confusion or to point students to additional resources.
As a course management system…
Students were required to post some assignments onto the blog. This was a way to increase the collective intelligence of the group and to make their hard work available to a wider audience. It stressed the point that the assignments were not being written “just” for the instructor or for a grade. We stressed the fact that the blogs were available to the public at large and that they were creating resources that could potentially help the education community at large. It also helped the students realize the multimodal nature of the information that they were producing.
An outlet for frustration…
Working under such tight deadlines causes a lot of stress (for both student and instructor!). A few students used the blog as an outlet for their frustration. This was a great way for me to help mitigate issues and I was very happy that students felt comfortable enough to acknowledge that they were under stress. My co-instructor and I were able to diffuse this stress before it came to a head and affected the enthusiasm to forge ahead.
Lessons Learned
We used Edublogs.org as our blogging system. Unfortunately, in the first few days of class, Edublogs was having server problems and was not consistently available. We turned this problem on its head and used it as a discussion point for implementation into their own classrooms. As a work around, students typed up their postings in a word processor and posted them when Edublogs was back online. For the most part, students did not dig too deep into the use of categories or “tags.” The concept of adding meta-data to online content is more abstract and did not catch on as easily as simply posting to the blog. As online content creators become more comfortable working with these technologies and the participatory culture of internet use grows, I am sure that our folksonomies will become more and more important.
We experimented with a wide range of Web 2.0 technologies during the summer and keeping track of multiple streams of information was a challenge. Initially, I subscribed to the student’s RSS feeds using Thunderbird however, I found it more helpful to use the tabbed browsing feature in Firefox to keep track of what was happening on the blogs. I saved all of the blogs into one folder and several times a day would go and check for new postings or comments.
In Conclusion
Though the blogs are no longer updated, a handful of the students have taken their experiences back to their own classrooms and are blogging in other spaces. In course reviews and informal discussions, students reported enjoying blogging along with the other course requirements. From an instructor perspective, it is very encouraging to go back and visit these ‘time-capsules’ which give an outsider a look into the amazing amount of scholarship and collegiality that transpired in such a short amount of time.
Additional Resources
The theme for our summer course was to “Build Bridges” between people and the Web 2.0 technologies. For the final group assignment, students were challenged with taking on the responsibility of building a series of (metaphorical) bridges between people and the “Web 2.0” technologies we had been interacting with this summer. You may find the final projects that the students created helpful as you consider using Web 2.0 technologies in your own practice:
