What Can I Tell College Professors?
Hi everyone
I am giving a workshop this week on blogging for a group of about 20 professors at a local college. These are folks who have not blogged before and are interested in determining the possibilities of integrating blogs into the classroom. Most are English and Education professors. Now, I am an elementary teacher and I have worked primarily with k-12 teachers on using blogs and podcasting, and I have plenty of rationale and examples for that level.
I know the question will likely come up, how is blogging different from using Blackboard or WebCT or whatever. Why use blogs at the university level? I can certainly talk through these questions but I thought I would turn to our growing community here for some ideas on how to address these issues.
If there are any folks here who can help provide some stories on how they used blogs for the college/university level, that would be most appreciated.
Or, even, maybe you can help provide some pegagogy behind the use of blogging at that level of learning.
Any tidbits or stories or comments would be welcome.
Sincerely,
Kevin
I am giving a workshop this week on blogging for a group of about 20 professors at a local college. These are folks who have not blogged before and are interested in determining the possibilities of integrating blogs into the classroom. Most are English and Education professors. Now, I am an elementary teacher and I have worked primarily with k-12 teachers on using blogs and podcasting, and I have plenty of rationale and examples for that level.
I know the question will likely come up, how is blogging different from using Blackboard or WebCT or whatever. Why use blogs at the university level? I can certainly talk through these questions but I thought I would turn to our growing community here for some ideas on how to address these issues.
If there are any folks here who can help provide some stories on how they used blogs for the college/university level, that would be most appreciated.
Or, even, maybe you can help provide some pegagogy behind the use of blogging at that level of learning.
Any tidbits or stories or comments would be welcome.
Sincerely,
Kevin
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Shamblesguru (Chris Smith) on
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The Videos and PowerPoints here might help .... it can certainly be their homework ... or pre-attendance assignment .... evaluate one of these and leave a comment?
http://bloggingvideos.blogspot.com/
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I now usually use a Blog to support any workshops/conferences I'm contributing to .... for example I did some work in Singapore in March and here is the Blog that I built (very quickly,free, in Blogger) to support the sessions.
http://singaporeworkshops.blogspot.com/
Feel free to use this as part of any case studies .... it is usually with participants I've not met before and the Blog does reduce their anxieties as they can contributeusing "comments" .... several members have said to me that they were not so worried about attending after the read the comments from others.
The fact that people have heard my voice also breaks the ice more easily before the event .... although adding audio to a Blog is, I guess, lesson 2 ;-)
I'm doing some more workshops in Singapore in June and I shall just add postings to this page so it becomes an ongoing resource.
Another use of Blogs that might appeal to them is the embedding of multimedia ... have a look at the "Forest of Theme Blogs" I'm cultivating ... list at http://www.shambles.net/blogforest/ ... but early days yet ... hopefully one of the themes is relevant to your professors .... are they from one department? .... if so then let me know their curriculum area and I'll knock one together 4 U.
Have fun. - Attachments:
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blogforestBUTTON.gif, 1 KB
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Permalink Reply by Kevin H. on
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Wow, Chris.
What an amazing bunch of resources. I was busy pushing my Post to Delicious button, saving many of your sites, that I now need to go back to examine them more closely.
This is a bit of a tangent, but I am overseeing a Collaborative ABC Movie project with teachers from around the country right now (we each get a letter or two, develop a movie based on that letter, and then post it to a site called Jumpcut for later editing -- it's an experiment in digital storytelling), so I loved the ABC movies and clips that you pulled together. Very funny.
Thanks again
Kevin
PS -- I am not quite sure of their department, but thanks for thinking of me. The workshop is on Friday.
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Kevin
Hope that when the ABC Project is completed that you put a post here to let us know about it.
Also hope that when your final movies are posted that they are in an environment that allows teachers/students to embed them into their own Blogs.
My word of the year for 2007 is "embeddable" .. if there is such a word .... and the filters don't block it 'cause it sounds suggestive ;-)
Have fun
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Yes on both counts, Chris.
We intend to share both the final movie and our reflections on the process as a way to learn and to provide a guidepost for others, if they want to follow us down this path. Our real question is how is digital storytelling changing in the wave of interactive web, and what does that mean, and how can we tap into these new tools for creative/collaborative expression.
Here is the blog from which most of the work is being launched: http://techstories.edublogs.org/
Feel free to join the conversation.
And I am pushing hard to have everyone upload to googlevid or youtube (or maybe the new teachertube -- but I can't get those teachertube videos to embed yet on edublogs) so that they movies can be shared in a variety of formats, including embedment (is that a word?).
Take care,
Kevin
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Permalink Reply by Carla Arena on
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Hi, Kevin, in the beginning of this year I, together with 3 other friends, moderated an online session for the TESOL electronic Village, "Blogging for Beginners". On the wiki, you'll find the syllabus, weekly tasks, the blog, the discussion threads, so feel free to take a look. There are also readings and examples of blogs in different teaching settings. I guess it might help you to get some ideas for your workshop. If you need any help or want to know more about it, please let me know.
http://bloggingforbeginners.pbwiki.com
Carla
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Thank you.
There seems to be some fine resources and discussion points at your site.
I appreciate the digital pointer, Carla.
Kevin
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Hi, Kevin,
Some good practices the group came up with.
http://bloggingpractices.pbwiki.com/
Hope it helps.
Carla
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Yesterday, I presented my workshop on Weblogs to a group of about 20 Composition and English professors at a small college in Western Massachusetts. They were receptive to the idea of blogging but only one had every used a blog and most had heard the term "blog" but had not idea what it was. So you can see what I was up against.
Still, although WebCT was available to them, they all recognized the limitations of that network -- closed community and time element (the discussion ends when the semester ends).
The comments here in this forum were very helpful in framing our discussions at the start of the workshop and they were duly impressed that there was a vast (?) network of teachers out here discussing these ideas and sharing information.
The workshop discussion set the stage for touring our the world of Weblogs, which then led to everyone setting up their own blog in Edublogs and begin some posting and commenting. Really, that is another workshop altogether, but I got everyone started and answered a lot of questions.
And two of the professors say they intend to try it out as a reading response activity with their classes this coming week, so a few are moving forward.
Thanks again to everyone who posted here.
Sincerely,
Kevin
PS -- Here is the main workshop page that I use for many of my workshops. Feel free to use it, steal it, copy it and adapt it as necessary. I change it, depending upon my audience (for example, we did not get to the podcasting element of this workshop page yesterday and only began to mention rss aggregators).
http://blogs.writingproject.org/blogwrite270/
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