I think the overwhelming aspect of using blogs in the classroom is the amount of preparation a teacher needs in order for the project to be a success. As Knobel and Lankshear mention in "Weblog Worlds" there are many, many failed classroom blogs(p. 88). Scanning though the examples they cite it is clear that though teachers may have good intentions implimenting technology literacy practices in the classroom, they are unaware or unable to do the necessary establishing work in order for the sites to be successful platforms for discourse. What does a student learn by posting their "notes" from the reading? How do we create inquiry-based projects that will have exponential inertia once the discussion opens up?
The hurdle that concerns me the most is the idea that as a future ELA teacher, I must be concerned with my students' literacies in and out of the classroom. It is a fair assumption that most students are familiar with computers and are at least comfortable with a few aspects of the internet (Facebook, blogs, chatrooms). But as a teacher, I worry about cultivating their academic technology literacy. I want students to be able to "code switch" between how they interact in their personal online chats to their discussions held on the classroom blog or wiki. Transitioning away from out-of-school online interactions into a world of academic online writing and communication is certainly a new literacy. Starting out with the rules of the 'net, in addition to being the invisible "Big Brother" of the site are a start, but isn't it our job as teachers to also foster the use of academic language in writing? The blog format can be so informal and I'm afraid students may enter the site with this notion of blogs in mind. It seems like a lot of work on the teacher's part to ensure a smooth experience. And even then,without authentic student engagement (see: "helloooooooooooooooooooo...(89).") the online community will fall flat. And then what? Do we motivate our students with heavy-handed grading on blog dialogues? If it is utter mutiny then there is so much time and learning lost.
Yet we find hope in Kajder's words as she mentions in her concluding thoughts about online communities in chapter 8 of The Tech-Savvy English Classroom: "we need to believe that through the investment of our thoughts, our time, and our work, we'll come out on the other end with something greater (115)." And I believe this concept is the greater purpose and motivation of teaching itself.
The new angle of applied technologies and internet-based communities is another great tool for the teacher tool box, but the process of acclimating oneself to it is similar to the way in which we adjust to all of our curriculum development. At least as a pre-service MA student, I am often caught up by the amount of prior knowledge (in terms of education) that I lack. But practice in the field, as with our activities with new online tools and forums, will yeild better understanding and eventually, one hopes, mastery in application!
Thanks for reading!
Blogs (especially on blogger) are initially easier for most people to work with than wikis, because they follow a template that's less open-ended. They are wonderful for this sort of reflection, but it's harder to use them as a full teaching site. I don't think, though, that it needs to be either/or. As for language and code-switching, from my observations, most blog-writers do take their writing very seriously and make choices that are appropriate to the audience they want to reach. If you give students models of the sorts of blogs you'd like them to keep, the sorts of entries you'd like them to write, and talk with them about what they observe re. the style and the genre, they'll understand that this form of online writing, for your class, is not like the very informal online writing they might be doing in other contexts.
ReplyDelete