This is the first time I've used Blogger in over five years.
I'd started my blog here in May of 2005, but after I'd successfully recruited some co-authors (Lokman Tsui and Jason Tocci), Lok got us set up with a WordPress site. That's where we blog today: ShoutingLoudly.com. (Since then, Lok recruited Dave Karpf, and he writes so much more often that it's really more his blog than any of ours.)
Now, though, I'm back, and it's to use Blogger as a teaching tool. This coming Spring semester, I'll be teaching a class at Hunter called Internet and Society. A big portion of students' grades (20%) will be based on four blog posts of about 500 words each. We will use Blogger as the default publishing platform because, well, it's just so darned easy.
I think all college students--let alone students with this class on their transcript--should learn to write well online. Because there are a lot of really helpful geeks out there, however, they don't all need to learn how to register a domain name, write HTML, etc. etc. Writing online is now really easy. Writing well, however, is a different story.
In our class, we'll be discussing the web as a medium on an analytical level--not teaching web design. (We have a two-semester series in web design, and many other digital media production classes, in our department.) To reach a solid understanding of this medium, it's vital for students to understand at least the basics of writing for the web--and writing in a professional voice, knowing that their writings will be public.
If you're reading this, I'd love to hear your feedback. Have you ever taught somebody else to write online or had somebody try to teach you? What should I emphasize and what can I let slide? What should I be prepared to help students with the most?
I'm looking forward to this experiment.
FIRST!!!!!
ReplyDeleteI've never done that before, but I couldn't help it. The above statement is how people would comment on that post if they were to model their e-writing off of random forum posts and youtube vistor commenters. "First"ing is reflective of the sort of impulsive behavior that seems as though it can only be self taught. It plays off anonymity of the internet.
Most teenagers learn to write on the internet alone, with the knowledge that their future does not depend on their web persona. This not how our generation learned to write in the classroom, even when though the world wide offers a serious challenge to even the most compelling of lecturers.
As I mentioned in class, this is actually the seventh class I've taken that required updating a class blog or maintaining a public or semi-public personal blog relating to the class. This is interesting because, as an upper sophomore, I have only taken ten classes at Hunter. I've also taken three classes which required regular posts to a shared discussion board, one of which required this in addition to a class blog update.
Some of these classes wanted us to include a link and a few sentences. Some wanted well a thought out paragraph in response to a teachers post or the assigned readings. One required us to post lab reports and integrate a 2000 word (8 pages) paper into a wordpress layout. Another wanted us to document all course relevant life experiences over a semester. I've written short blog entries and long blog entries as assignments. All exhibited proper spelling and grammer. Most attempted to take the subject manner seriously, were organized in advance. When I write for a class blog, appearing smart and prepared for a class takes precedence over admitting gut feelings and impulses.
This is a shame because many of the most successful blogs of our time rely on quick and original opinion based editorial content.
When I write a school blog post, its always a second before I hit "publish" that I remember that I am writing a blog and attempt a gimmicky title or opener which creates a false sense of ease. My school blogger voice is much more composed than my conversational speaking voice or my social network voice. It is a "punnier," rhetorical question loving version of my school paper writing voice. Do you feel that you resort to formulas to fake a sense of informality on your school blog?
If other students are like me, they'll think that Professor Herman should reward us for creating blog entries that reference existing class dialogue and forgive us if what we write is boring or uses weird vocabulary. You/he should will need to help us balance intelligent writing with internet sensibilities by offering successful examples of his own work, like the above blog entry.
We're off to a good start. Maybe after another four months of this, I'll know better than to type the equivalent of two double spaces size 12 font word processor pages in the comment box of a blog entry that is half its size.
I'm also looking forward to this experiment.