My new thoughts on blogging

Last summer, when I wrote a proposal to incorporate blogs into the TE 448 course, I wasn't sure where the project would lead. Since I was pretty new to blogging myself, I knew that I was going to have to learn along with all of you and draw heavily on the expertise of the class. Thank you for making the project so successful!

Part of my identity and practice as a teacher is to analyze student work and consider student feedback as I teach. Sometimes I do this more formally in action research projects, and sometimes I just think of it as part of good teaching. Usually I try to share what I've learned with the class in some way, although this is the first time I've gone "public" with my reflections! (And, since I, like all of you, will need a portfolio when I begin my job search, this record of my thinking will come in handy!)

I've spent today summarizing results of our end of the semester feedback activity, rereading your blogs (especially from the day we did a completely on-line discussion), thinking about how we seemed to use them for different purposes, reflecting on the discussions we had throughout the semester, rereading the correspondences from different authors, looking at our "public" site for final projects, and even revisiting the post-its that are stuck to the wall by my desk that say things like "How can I encourage more commenting???".

Here's what I'm planning for next semester:

• Sharing your feedback with the new TE 448 instructor who is planning on continuing to use blogs. I'll talk to her about whether she might offer more or a different structure that would encourage more focus and commenting. For example, I wonder if only subscribing to your group's blogs would have focused conversation. Or, maybe a schedule? The tension for me here is that this feels less authentic. I usually think of blogging as writing that one does as the spirit moves you!

• Developing a community, class blog for TE 348 next semester, decreasing the number of required posts, and making a rough schedule for posting/commenting. I'm hoping that this will focus discussion and make the project more manageable. Since TE 348 is a prerequisite for TE 448, I'm also thinking about this as a kind of scaffolding that might make individual blogs in TE 448 more manageable.

Here are my new questions:

• Will having a community blog focus on-line discussion so that people feel that others are reading and responding to their ideas?
• Will the change shift the interaction patterns? For example, will there be more student-student interactions, rather than student-instructor-student interactions? Or will students think of the blog as "my space"? (Ha, ha... You know what I mean!)
  
• Will there be something lost in the process? For example, I hope that students from this semester continue to write on their blogs. (HINT, HINT) Will students feel less ownership and/or stop blogging after the semester is done?
  
• How will the work load change for me as an instructor? Will it feel more manageable?
  

I'm sure that this newest experiment will raise new questions and innovations! For anyone who would like to see how it goes, you are welcome to read and comment on the TE 348, SS08 blog!