Thanks - nice to hear of someone else's experiences too. Since I first started the students have to blog on lots of different parts of their course, which results in lots of blogs they then abandon. This year however a number have continued with their blog from online journalism, which is a good sign,
hi i just discovered and joined audio boo and found you and this post and was quite interested in the topic.
i teach a fully online master's level course "intro to online teaching" and have used blogging as a metacognitive journaling activity in the course for 3 years now. (here is a prezi about my course fyi http://prezi.com/yyzcr9_btox6/teaching-learning-in-the-cloud/)
Blogging is a required component of the course. they are required to reflect on their learning and to provide me with descriptive feedback on their learning experiences in the course. they are given specific guiding questions or each blogging assignment (1 per week/2 per module) and they must self assess their own posts based on a rubric http://etap687.edublogs.org/2008/06/02/reflections-blog-post-grading-rubric/
They have freedom to blog about whatever they like, but they do have to address in some way the guiding questions in at least one of their posts. They read and respond to each others posts and i comment and give them feedback in blog comments and using diigo highlight and comments. I also grade them based on the rubric. the activity is 20% of their grade.
I feel very strongly about public blogging. If it is in the course and student access to it is removed at the end of the term then it is NOT a BLOG. The very nature of a blog is that it is yours and public. If we ask students to generate content and then we take away their access to it, how is that student-centered? I want my students to have the experience of developing their public digital voice and to contribute to the living discourse on the social web.
I use it for 2 reasons:
1. To get them to make their thinking and learning visible to me. to reflect on their learning, on how they learn and on what they are learning and how they are applying what they are learning and on how what they are learning makes them feel. I want them to apply, defend, refute, assert, support, etc. , what they are thinking, learning, feeling.
2. To provide descriptive feedback to me on the activities and design of the course so that i can understand their experiences in it better and so that i can improve it and my practice.
You can browse through my students blogs here http://etap687.edublogs.org/ (I also keep a blog for the course). Current live 2010 student blogs are links on my blog and a selection of blogs from 2009 and 2008 past semesters are also links.
The quality of their posts and their insights are astounding. The tone and nature of their posts have a different character than their posts in course discussions.
i teach a fully online master's level course "intro to online teaching" and have used blogging as a metacognitive journaling activity in the course for 3 years now. (here is a prezi about my course fyi http://prezi.com/yyzcr9_btox6/teaching-learning-in-the-cloud/)
Blogging is a required component of the course. they are required to reflect on their learning and to provide me with descriptive feedback on their learning experiences in the course. they are given specific guiding questions or each blogging assignment (1 per week/2 per module) and they must self assess their own posts based on a rubric
http://etap687.edublogs.org/2008/06/02/reflections-blog-post-grading-rubric/
They have freedom to blog about whatever they like, but they do have to address in some way the guiding questions in at least one of their posts. They read and respond to each others posts and i comment and give them feedback in blog comments and using diigo highlight and comments. I also grade them based on the rubric. the activity is 20% of their grade.
I feel very strongly about public blogging. If it is in the course and student access to it is removed at the end of the term then it is NOT a BLOG. The very nature of a blog is that it is yours and public. If we ask students to generate content and then we take away their access to it, how is that student-centered? I want my students to have the experience of developing their public digital voice and to contribute to the living discourse on the social web.
I use it for 2 reasons:
1. To get them to make their thinking and learning visible to me. to reflect on their learning, on how they learn and on what they are learning and how they are applying what they are learning and on how what they are learning makes them feel. I want them to apply, defend, refute, assert, support, etc. , what they are thinking, learning, feeling.
2. To provide descriptive feedback to me on the activities and design of the course so that i can understand their experiences in it better and so that i can improve it and my practice.
You can browse through my students blogs here http://etap687.edublogs.org/ (I also keep a blog for the course). Current live 2010 student blogs are links on my blog and a selection of blogs from 2009 and 2008 past semesters are also links.
The quality of their posts and their insights are astounding. The tone and nature of their posts have a different character than their posts in course discussions.
for example:
http://joanerickson.edublogs.org/
http://joyquah.edublogs.org/
http://francapponi.edublogs.org/
It's nice to meet you, enjoyed your boo on this topic.
: ) alex