The Tempered Radical

Part Three: Teacher Tips for Blogging Projects

Over the past week, I’ve been sharing sets of tips that I always recommend to teachers who are beginning classroom blogging projects. 

The first entry covered questions connected to common technical questions:  Should I have one classroom blog or a blog for every student?  Should our blogs be open for commenting?  The second entry addressed the steps that teachers can take to connect readers and writers in classroom blogging projects. 

Today’s third (and final) entry is sort of a grab bag, sharing general thoughts about topics ranging from the role that visitor maps play in blogging projects to the importance of emphasizing high-quality writing in student entries:

Emphasize the important role that quality writing plays in successful blogs

Because writing and publishing online is so easy—and because interactions between students in electronic forums are often defined by casual grammar and language use—many students approach blogging with a careless attitude, failing to invest significant time into crafting polished entries. While they crave audience, they misunderstand the message that mistakes send to readers.

Not only should teachers interested in blogging projects encourage students to work through the steps of the writing process (brainstorming, drafting, revising and editing) before publishing—just as they would on traditional tasks—they should also reinforce time-and-again that the credibility of writers is dependent solely on the quality of their written work.

Students must know that the potential for having influence in online communities exists only when students present ideas in ways that will impress readers.

Consider naming and training student editors

Teachers who are starting classroom blogging projects often enthusiastically jump in with two feet, encouraging classes to churn out dozens of entries, promoting posts with parents and peers, and building new lessons with their blogs in mind.

Then, they end up buried by entries that are poorly written or by students who need technical help to get new pieces posted online. Eventually, they begin to question whether the time that they are investing in monitoring student work for quality and in facilitating digital novices is really worth it. Enthusiasm is replaced by exhaustion.

That’s why student editors are so important for successful classroom blogging projects. Training a handful—three to five per year—super motivated students to proofread new entries and to support students struggling with technical skills can ensure that teachers don’t suffer from “monitoring burnout.”

Over time, you’ll have veteran student editors who take great pride in the blog that your class is producing. Not only will they continue to write for you once they’ve left your class, they’ll serve as competent gatekeepers, polishing entries that aren’t quite ready to be published, monitoring comments that are being posted, and generating enthusiasm for the work that you are doing online.

Require that students use pseudonyms while writing

For many schools and districts, the risks involved in introducing students to tools for communicating, collaborating and publishing content online far outweigh the rewards. Frightened by stories of internet predators, restrictions are placed on the kinds of information that students can reveal and the kinds of opportunities that students can be engaged in online.

One step that you can take to keep your students safe—and to comfort district leaders who question your decision to begin a classroom blog—is to teach your students about the importance of remaining confidential online.

Resist the urge to include the name of your school or yourself in your blog’s title. Refuse to link directly to any sites that readers could connect back to your classroom, and require that students use pseudonyms to sign their writing.

As “cloak-and-dagger” as these efforts at internet safety may seem to you, your students are likely to enjoy them! Pseudonyms and confidentiality allow them to try on different identities and to be judged based on their thoughts instead of their age or their social groups.

And the first time that their work is mistaken for that of anyone older than they really are, your students will be electrified!

Include—and regularly explore—visitor maps and statistics on page views.

As motivating as local readers can be for student bloggers, discovering that visitors from all over the world stop by to read their work never fails to amaze tweens and teens. To prove to your students that they are reaching readers in faraway locations, be sure to include a visitor map in the sidebar of your blog.

While there are many services that will track the location of the visitors that land on your site, Cluster Maps (http://www.clustrmaps.com/) is one of the most popular because it highlights each visitor with a red dot on a digital image of the world. Before long, red dots will cover entire continents, reinforcing the idea that your students are being heard!

Cluster Maps also reports the number of page views that your website receives on a regular basis—and can break those page view statistics down by continent. Consider asking students to track this information carefully in their notebooks or on a classroom bulletin board.

Watching your readership grow over time will be just as motivating to your students as seeing where their readers are coming from.

 

So what ideas, tips and suggestions do you have for teachers who are tackling classroom blogging projects?  Is there anything that I’ve left out?  Are there points that I’ve made that you can improve on?

I’d love to hear what other readers are doing to make blogging work in their classrooms!

Part Two: Teacher Tips for Blogging Projects

Last weekend, I shared part one in a three-part mini-series detailing tips and tricks for classroom blogging projects—and it was a hit!  Not only did the post draw a ton of attention, it also drew a ton of dialogue here on the Radical and in other blogs spread across cyberspace. 

So I figured it was time to share a few more teacher tips for classroom blogging projects.  Let’s see what you think of these suggestions, which all address cultivating and interacting with an audience:

Promote student blog entries to parents and colleagues

While writing for the Web ensures that your students will eventually have readers from every corner of the globe, the vast majority of your blog’s readers—and almost all of your commenters—are going to be the parents of your students, the students in the classrooms of your colleagues, and educators that you have made connections with in faraway locations.

Parents, colleagues and students in classrooms just like yours have a stake in the learning that your students are doing online. That’s what makes them willing to read what your kids are writing and to stop by to leave a comment every now and then.

Don’t let this discourage you! In fact, work hard to promote your students’ writings with parents and colleagues. Send out links to pieces that you’re particularly proud of or that are likely to stimulate exciting conversations. Ask parent volunteers to stop by once a week and leave feedback for the students who have posted new entries.

Not only do students need to receive feedback in order to remain motivated by your classroom blogging efforts, but feedback from those who matter—moms, dads, teachers and best friends—is often far more meaningful than the occasional comment left by an outsider, regardless of where they are from!

Remind students to respond to commenters.

As your blog begins to draw attention and starts to receive comments from readers, remind your students to respond to each comment directly, either in the comment section of their original entry or in a new post on your blog. By responding directly to readers, your students are showing their audience that they are listening—a key to encouraging return visits!

More importantly, however, responding to comments allows your students to take advantage of the primary benefit of writing for an audience: The ability to have thinking challenged over-and-over again.

Writers who make their core beliefs transparent are often introduced to new perspectives, and responding to those new perspectives—pushing back, refining original positions, articulating misunderstandings—is a critical part of the cycle of true learning.

Schedule regular readers for videoconference feedback sessions

If you carefully cultivate parents, peers and colleagues as regular readers who stop by to comment on the work that your students are publishing online, consider scheduling a videoconference to connect your students to a real member of their audience. By inviting a reader “into” your classroom, you automatically reinforce the idea that student voice really does matter.

Have your digital guest to describe what it is that they like the best about your student blog. Encourage them to share specific entries that they thought highly of and content strands that were motivating. Ask for areas of improvement.

Nothing can be more powerful to student writers than hearing from their readers—and hearing from readers is one digital step away!

The final part of this series will be posted sometime this weekend.

Part One: Teacher Tips for Blogging Projects

I’ve been doing a bunch of work lately with teachers who are interested in incorporating more digital learning opportunities in their classrooms.  Often, the first tool that they express interest in are blogs.

Blogs offer teachers and students a natural bridge between work that they are already doing (producing written reports and reflections on classroom content has been a part of classroom experiences since Socrates was stumbling around the agora with groups of learners) and work that they’d like to be doing:  Exposing students to a broader audience that can publicly challenge their thinking.

There are several considerations that teachers interested in blogging must think through before starting classroom projects, however.  Three of the most common questions that I’m asked about blogging in schools are answered below:

Should I have every student create their own blog?

Heck no! For blogs to survive and thrive, they need to have a constantly updated stream of content—at least 2 or 3 posts per week. Blogs that are not updated on a regular basis lose the attention of readers, who have plenty of other options in today’s digital world.

Because most K12 students will struggle to generate 2 or 3 meaningful posts per week—and because monitoring the content posted on 50+ blogs can be an overwhelming challenge for any teacher—it is best to start any classroom blogging project with one blog that every student in your class or on your academic team can post to.

While you’ll have to work with one username and password—which could lead to inappropriate or unpolished entries being posted by students that you don’t completely trust—your chances of generating an audience for your students are far greater when your students are working together to generate content.

Does blogging always equal writing?

Believing that blogs are ONLY opportunities for students to practice writing skills is a fatal flaw for most classroom blogging projects. Instead of digital soapboxes, teachers and students must begin to see blogs as interactive forums for continuing conversations around topics of interest—and interactive forums require two-way participation.

That means your students need to become avid readers of blogs, too. Consider organizing a collection of student blogs in a public feed reader that your students can visit during silent reading time or while surfing the web at home.

Encouraging students to read blogs written by other students serves three primary purposes:

1. Students who read blogs see models of writing that can be use as comparisons for their own work.
2. Students who read blogs are exposed to ideas for interesting topics that they may want to explore and write about in new entries for your blogging project.
3. Students who read blogs connect with potential audiences for their own ideas.

Should I open student posts to comments?

Absolutely—as long as you’re willing to review comments before they become “live” on your classroom blog.

The comment section on blogs characterizes the participatory nature of digital learning experiences.  Not only are blogs a forum for your students to express their own thinking and ideas, they can become a forum for thinking and ideas to be challenged—and challenged thinking is the primary source for new learning.  When readers force your students to reconsider their original positions, you’ll see a level of mental wrestling that you’ll be proud to celebrate in your classroom.

Don’t forget to systematically teach the skills necessary for writing effective blog comments, too, because commenting gives students opportunities to practice reacting to ideas in writing. What’s more, comments left on entries written by other authors can serve as first drafts for future posts on your own classroom’s blog.

Finally, commenting emphasizes the community nature of blogging and draws reciprocal readers—people interested in looking closer at the ideas expressed by your students—to your classroom’s blog.

 

I’ll post Part Two in this series of posts—answering more common classroom blogging questions—sometime next week

Using Microloans to Learn About the World

I realized the other day that it’s been awhile since I’ve written one of my This is Why I Teach posts, and that’s a real bummer.  Stopping every now and then to remember what it is that I love about my job is important because with the criticism launched at teachers from every turn, this gig can be a grind if you don’t find a rose to smell every now and then!

Thankfully for me, my kids have been throwing dozens of roses my way ever since my academic team decided to raise funds to start a Kiva club designed to make microloans to entrepreneurs in the developing nations of Africa and South America last spring.

Following the British tradition of Red Nose Day, we had our very first “Do Something Funny for Money Day” in March of 2009.  Our classes had to raise $250 in order to have free periods in all three of their core classes.  In the end, they raised just over $500. 

Crazy, huh?

(If you’re interested in hosting your own Do Something Funny for Money Day, here’s the handout I shared with my parents and students:  Download Funny4Money)

Next, we spent a few weeks studying South America---a continent covered in our required curriculum—with an eye towards identifying the countries where people struggle the most with poverty.  We then worked through several mini-lessons on the advantages and disadvantages of several different types of Kiva microloans before making loans to 16 different businesses—many of whom are featured on this Kiva Team page. 

(If you’re interested in seeing the mini-lessons that we used to make our decisions, here they are: Download Kiva_Gift_Card   Download Kiva_Group_Loans   Download South America Snapshot   Download Kiva_South_America_Stud   Download Kiva_Women_Loans)

Instructionally, this activity was primarily designed to give my students a real-world opportunity to learn about the world.  Sure, we could poke our way through the textbook to study the differences between life in Peru and the United States, but there’s something inherently authentic about studying Peru so that you can make the best decision about who to loan your money to.

The Anatomy of a Hoax Website

One of the skills that today’s students need to learn--and that many schools fail to systematically teach--is how to identify hoax websites.  In a world where content can be created by anyone, being a critical consumer of online content is not an optional skill. 

So I figured I’d introduce y’all to the anatomy of a hoax website—and finding one wasn’t too difficult at all!  Early in the week, a spammer in Twitter—who has since disabled his own account—sent me a message suggesting that I look into a new opportunity to work for Google from home!

Interested in any opportunity to make a bit of extra cash, I checked out the website that he’d sent along in his Tweet.  You should too because it is a perfect example of digital chicanery at its best!

Here’s the link

A quick glance at the site left me pretty impressed. 

(click to enlarge image)

The layout clearly looked professional, and the “As Seen on CNN” bar at the top of the page lent an air of credibility to the claim that regular folk like you and I could make thousands of dollars by spotting new sites and sharing interesting links with the the world’s largest search engine.

(click to enlarge image)

Being a guy who is constantly bookmarking websites and sharing them through my Twitter feed with friends, the site had my attention.  As I kept reading, though, my hoax radar started to zoom in on subtle hints that just didn’t seem to sit right with me. 

Embracing What Could Be?

Download Protectingwhatwas

A Place for Gathering. . .

Download Gatherversusgathering

When Teachers Fail. . .

Download Slide_Teachers_Failing

Dina's Pushback on Digital Dependence

So Dina Strasser----my friend and favorite digital skeptic who blogs over at The Line---stopped by to offer some healthy pushback to our recent conversation about teachers who fail to embrace new digital tools independently. 

Dina wrote:

In closing I'll suggest one of those legion reasons beyond laziness, which happens to be most often my own: I remain firmly skeptical about the use of any technology that pulls my kids away from face to face, local, sense-based interactions with the world. I'd rather figure out how to get all 90 kids on my team to a decent play, first.

Here's the deal, though, Dina:  What about those people who live in places where "local, sense-based interactions" with the world are impossible, either because of cost or location?  Couldn't technology provide solutions that wouldn't have otherwise been possible?

Let's use your efforts to get your team to a decent play as an example.  In about four minutes of web searching this morning----I used Google's Wonder Wheel and searched 'Watch Plays Online'----I found the Plays in Perpetuity website, which includes a collection of several stage plays broken down by scene and performed by professionals. 

With little more than an Internet connection, you CAN get all 90 of your kids to a decent play.  And you can do it today.  With no field trip permission slips, with no organizing busses.  With no ticket prices.  All you've got to do is turn on a data projector and a computer. 

What's more, I'd bet that with another hour, I could probably find an actor, director, producer or stage manager----from a major stage company or from a local university----who would be willing to Skype into my classroom and talk with my students about performing.  Again, all I'd need is a computer and a data projector, and I could plug my students into knowledge they'd never get if I had to load 'em all up on busses and drive them to campus.

If this were my own unit on plays, I'd probably have my kids create their own performances and record them with a Flip video camera.  With a bit of quick editing in Moviemaker---another free application---we'd have a final product ready to post in Voicethread, where groups could receive feedback from peers, both in our classroom and all over the world. 

(While it's not a play, check out how kids in my class are using Voicethread to give and receive feedback about stories that they've written about adaptation.  The same kinds of interactions are possible around any performance that your kids cook up.)

Now, I floated these thoughts by my resident tech skeptic here at Salem, and he told me that none of the experiences that I describe are as "real" as actually going to a theater and seeing a play in person or as having an actor come to class and speak to students.  "What's wrong with actually doing things the old fashioned way?" he said. 

My answer is that there's nothing wrong with doing things "the old fashioned way," as long as you ACTUALLY can (and decide to) do them.  But for many teachers, "the old fashioned way" is enough of a pain in the rear that nothing ever gets done. 

I don't take kids to plays simply because it's difficult at best to do.  It requires several phone calls to ensure that theaters have enough seats for my team.  It requires filling out about three million forms and getting permission from eight dozen people.  It requires finding money for students who can't afford to go, finding busses to schlep us all over town, and finding parents who can volunteer their time as chaperones.

If it weren't for digital plays, my kids wouldn't see plays---and while that might sound cold, I'll bet it is a deep, dark secret hiding the hearts of dozens of overworked and underpaid educators.

My friend Mike, who used to live in rural South Dakota, didn't take kids to plays either because his school was in the middle of nowhere!  Getting kids to plays for Mike would have involved an overnight excursion----which was just not possible for the poor farming families that he was trying to serve.  

I guess what I'm trying to say is that digital tools, opportunities and experiences aren't automatically "better" than face-to-face opportunities, Dina----and maybe that sentiment comes across in the tone of my pieces. 

But digital tools, opportunities and experiences aren't automatically "worse" than face-to-face opportunities either.  When I hear teachers say that watching plays online isn't a "real" experience, I cringe because what's "real" to a person is an experience that they're having----and for many, online plays may be the only plays they're ever able to attend.

And for me, digital opportunities are far more efficient, making the "once-a-year" experiences----having guest speakers, going on field trips, interacting with students in other states and countries, giving and getting meaningful feedback from peers-----things that I can tackle every day if I want to.  Digital tools make once complicated instructional practices possible for every teacher----not just those who are willing to invest hundreds of hours into planning and preparation. 

What's more, whether we like it or not, our definitions of what's "real" are changing----and that's a reality that we can't ignore.  I heard Stephen Downes explain it like this once:  The Web 2.0 revolution---the tendency to interact online and the proliferation of tools that make complex interactions possible----is like the water at the bottom of a rushing waterfall.  

You ain't going to stop it no matter what.  The best you can hope to do is work like a kayaker, adjusting and navigating your way through troubled waters to get to your desired destination. 

My frustration----and the frustration expressed in so many of the comments connected to my recent post----rests with teachers who just plain refuse to get on the boat.

Any of this make sense?

Our Very Own (Digital) Woodstocks. . .

As a hard-core rock and roll fan, one of my greatest regrets in life is being born in 1970---10 months after Woodstock.  I like to believe that I’d’ve convinced mom and dad to drag me to Bethel in my diapers had I caught whiff of the collection of stars----and hundreds of thousands of likeminded rockers---gathering at Max Yasgur’s farm.

Being a Buffalo boy, it wouldn’t have even been that long of a drive!

 

(Image from Wikimedia Commons)

Within weeks of Jimi and Janis performing for a generation, historians, scholars and reporters started to recognize that something far more powerful than a simple concert had happened during those three days in August of 1969.  Look at how Time Magazine described the event:  

The baffling history of mankind is full of obvious turning points and significant events:  battles won, treaties signed, rulers elected or disposed, and now seemingly, planets conquered. 

Equally important are the great groundswells of popular movements that affect the minds and values of a generation or more, not all of which can be neatly tied to a time or place.  Looking back on the America of the ‘60s, future historians may well search for the meaning of [Woodstock].

--Time Magazine, August 29, 1969

And Woodstock certainly changed the minds and values of a generation, didn’t it?  A nation once defined by cold materialism and the quest for the kind of individual success and perfection memorialized by Ward and June Cleaver finally had a tangible expression of the very human desire to connect and to cooperate.  

This value shift was on public display in the trial of Abbie Hoffman, a full-fledged hippie who was charged with conspiracy and inciting a riot for his role in the mayhem that broke lose during the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. 

Asked to identify himself and his residence for the official court transcript during his trial, Hoffman’s reply left traditional America baffled:

“My name is Abbie.  I am an orphan of America.  I live in Woodstock Nation…a nation of alienated young people.  We carry it around with us as a state of mind…

It is a nation dedicated to cooperation versus competition, to the idea that people should have better means of exchange than property or money, that there should be some other basis for human interaction…

It does not consist of property or materials, but, rather, of ideas and certain values.”

Looking back through the lens of history makes me wonder whether or not the attitudes and values alive in Woodstock Nation have had an impact on the developmental arc of social technologies. 

Is is possible that the sense of alienation and commitment to cooperation instead of competition so obviously evident in the fields of Bethel have somehow birthed the kinds of tools that we use today to connect and to communicate across boundaries? 

Are some of Woodstock’s children----or grandchildren----sitting behind computers looking for ways to recreate the sense of synergy felt by their fathers and brothers and friends who lived through the idea revolution of the ‘60s and ‘70s? 

After all, we really do live in a world of digital Woodstocks, don’t we?  Hundreds of thousands of people gather online to protest, to celebrate, to connect, to communicate, to share ideas, and to simply share a sense of togetherness and mission every single day.

Iranians frustrated with their governments gather cell phones and sign in to Twitter accounts to make their protests public----and they’re supported by Scandinavian allies half of a world away.  Burma’s monks, professors and students decide to stand up to a repressive regime and send images, video and instant reports across the internet, causing international uprisings. 

Even kids are recognizing the power of digital action and their own roles as global citizens committed to cooperation.  When wildfires destroyed Australia and teacher-blogger Jenny Luca sent out a plea for help in rebuilding schools, mini-activists from several continents----including my own classroom----joined together as a nation of individuals built from shared values to raise funds together.

There are kids using digital tools to work together on projects to raise awareness about abuse in Darfur and to end child slavery.  Other students are using digital tools to provide lighting to third-world countries, to provide Kenyan girls with access to an education, and to make microloans to entrepreneurs around the world. 

There’s got to be some kind of connection between today’s collective actions and yesterday’s rock-and-roll ‘turning point,’ doesn’t there? 

Is it really possible that the feelings that welled up 40-years ago in the world’s most famous cow pasture aren’t alive in the hearts and minds of people who are finding ways to use social software to express a commitment to and concern for humans that they’ve never met but that they respect and appreciate?

Either way, I’m just jazzed that I can take global action----to be a resident of Woodstock Nation----from my couch! 

The cold mud and constant rains would have gotten old.