Forced blogging
Posted by susankmiller on August 29, 2007
Well, I figured out one way to force myself to blog…I assigned blogged reading/technology responses in my graduate seminar and then told the students that I would blog along with them. So, I have no more excuses.
I’m trying to decide how I feel about forced blogging, or compelled public writing of any kind. NC State has a pretty conservative policy on the issue, and students who blog or write in a wiki in class must sign a FERPA disclaimer before participating. What kind of ethical responsibilities does a teacher have when asking students to write, or communicate in any way, in a public forum? Is that a potential violation of student privacy? Is it an integral part of education? I can think of arguments for both, and for many possibilities in between.
For now, I’m going to just try to get in the habit of blogging myself. I can theorize about privacy issues and writing in the public sphere, but with very little personal experience in this medium, I don’t have much ethos on which to base any argument or theory I might come up with.
So, let the blogging begin!
August 31st, 2007 at 10:23 pm
Susan
Like you I started to blog and I am pleased that you are receiving a similar reaction to mine.
I too have some reservations about this from an instructional point of view. As you point out, this is public, but the landscape is vast and, if your experience and mine is any indication, no one will find us.
If a blogger blogs into a vacuum does the blog constitute a communication?
Inquiring minds and Barry Vaughn want to know.
Greg Pratt
Associate Adjunct Cleaning Engineer
Picacho Peak Satellite of the Red Mountain Campus of Mesa Community College
August 31st, 2007 at 10:26 pm
Heck, no wonder you have no participation – the research on moderated blogs is clear. Only Noam Chomsky and Raul Castro favor this type of totalitarian control on free speech?
And what happened to my picture?
Click here
September 1st, 2007 at 12:06 am
Yeah, yeah…I can’t figure out how to turn off the moderation feature on my blog! I’m working on it…
Susan
September 2nd, 2007 at 9:33 am
I too have had the same problem in the past. I not only required my students to blog about their readings and experiences in class, but then I had to force myself to read them. I think that your students’ topics are going to be far more interesting, however.
I have moved away from using a blog (I tried a ton of different types) in my courses, but I am using a wiki, and you bring up some interesting points here. Shortly after I started using the wiki, I changed my requirement for my students. The assignment now says that they have to participate in some way, and the way I would like them to is to post class information, but I did explain that other types of participation as in just using the information posted there would work.
One of the most interesting things I found for me was that I jumped the gun. I started requiring blogs in my courses before I was comfortable with them. Now that I am more comfortable, I am actually keeping a blog for both of my classes, and may pick up one for the third. So, maybe I am ready to go back to using them now that I like reading them more!
Great post!
September 3rd, 2007 at 10:35 pm
You didn’t only force yourself to blog…now that I know your students will be reading my blog, I need to get blogging more regularly as well. And of course there is a blog out there to help us who need to become better bloggers @ http://www.copyblogger.com/
Shell
September 3rd, 2007 at 11:06 pm
Ah…the ripple effect of the blogosphere!