A guest lecture on teaching digital composition with blogs that I delivered to Prof. Richard Beach's graduate seminar on Teaching Digital Writing. Note: It originally included a student podcast on the "Podosphere Blues" slide; the mp3 is not included here. 9/25/07

1. Teaching Digital Composition
with Blogs
Krista Kennedy
Dept. of Writing Studies

2. Why teach with blogs?

3. How does all this improve
student writing?

4. Why should you go to all
this trouble?

5. The Lofty Pursuit of

6. Multimodal Literacy

7. Network Literacy

8. Network literacy is “writing in a distributed,
collaborative environment. Weblogs are the
first native web genre. Serial, unstable,
networked...”

9. “Bringing network literacy to the
classroom means jolting students out
of the conventional individualistic,
closed writing of essays only ever
seen by their professor.”
From Jill Walker's talk at Brown,
http://huminf.uib.no/~jill/archives/blog_theorising
talk_at_brown.html

10. The blog is your playground.

11. Web 2.0 is your erector set.

12. Both are tools to teach
them to compose...

13. and share what they make.

14. • Sparklit
• Flickr
• Second Life
• Meez (avatars)
• Comic Life
• Tabblo
• YouTube
• Odeo (podcasting)

16. The podosphere blues

17. Also...

18. college is about the
public exchange of ideas.

19. Blogs are a space to
write in public.

20. Public Writing
=
Public Responsibility

21. Public Writing
=
Real Participation
in the Network

22. In order to
accomplish all that...

23. You have to know
exactly what you want.

25.  Class news?
 Individual reflective journal?
 Responses to assigned reading?
 Building a learning community?
 Filter for media coverage of course topics?
 Building network literacy?
 Engaging the larger blogosphere?
 Portfolio for all writing done in the course?

26. How will goals drive
your superstructure?

27. 1. How many blogs?

28.  Individual blog by instructor
 Individual student blogs
 Small group blogs
 Class blog

29. Instructor Blog
• Alternative Course Management System
• Class announcements
• Lecture notes
• Syllabi, policies

30. (Take note: This can be an
excellent CV peripheral for you.)

31. Problems

32. Preserves traditional
classroom hierarchy

33. Monologic

34. Individual Blogs
• Promotes ownership of work
• Encourages reflection
• Unconstrained by community norms
• Demands some technological responsibility

35. Problems

36. Makes community
more difficult

37. Demands a certain sort
of personality

38. Requires more time
for assessment

39. Small Group Blogs
 Encourage collaborative reflection
 Are conducive to peer review
 Are a good communication tool for group
projects

40. Problems

41. Usual collaboration issues

42. Overfamiliarity

43. Sometimes better served by a wiki

44. Often better served by a wiki

45. The Class Blog

46. Greater sense of
community

47. Promotes ongoing discussion

48. Frequent post turnover

49. More conducive to comments

50. Easier assessment

51. Nearly automatic
tech support

52. Problems

53. Individual voices can
be subsumed

54. Lack of individual ownership

55. Universal Issue:

56. Forced
Blogging

57. 1. Building community is
never a waste of time.

58. 2. You must model the
behavior you want to
see.

59. 2a. You must be a
functional part of the
community.

60. 3. Provide clear motivation.

61. 4. Offer prompts.

62. 5. Offer incentives.

63. 5. Bring the blog into
the classroom.

64. 6. Force options. Be dangerous.

65. Sirc, Geoff. English Composition as a
Happening. Utah State UP, 2002.

66. Instructor
responsibilities

69. People will find your blog.

70.  Search engines
 Blog indexes
 Uthink “Recently Updated Blogs” listing
 Technorati
 Blo.gs, weblogs.com
 Referral logs
 Links, trackbacks
 Personal referrals IRL

71. FERPA compliance

72. Remind students of
privacy issues

73. Use pseudonyms

74. Approve comments

75. Assessment

76. Provide specific criteria
and rubrics in the syllabus.