Blogging Bogdown

I gave my kids a break from blogging over the Christmas break. I told them that they didn't have to write over their break and that they could have a few weeks off. To my slight surprise, they all took me up on it. Over the two week break, I received only one post. Over the last several weeks of December, I had noticed that it was getting to be a struggle; the kids just didn't seem to be into it like they had been only six weeks earlier. Blogging was losing its charm.

I thought about this over the break. I wondered what was happening and why this was suddenly changing. Why was this happening? So today, our first day back from the break, I brought it to the kids. I asked them what was happening and what was causing the trouble. They were honest and said that they were finding it a struggle as well. I showed them some of the blogs their work has inspired. I showed them blogs of students who were readers of their work, and teachers who have been in touch with me and who have been blogging with their classes since we have started. I was trying to inspire them, to show them they are leaders and are doing good work. I wanted them not to give up.

We had an open discussion and I asked for suggestions. We looked at a few models of how people are using blogs in their classrooms. They liked models like Darren's high school class and the grade eight blogs from Sargent Park. They have been fairly regular contributors to Second Opinion, a blog from Texas. They liked the idea of reading everyone's work in one space. We currently each have our own blogs and the students post in their own spaces, but it was interesting that they were asking for a communal space.

We also discussed them having to leave comments on other blogs and supporting others that have started blogging by ensuring a regular string of comments are sent to everyone. They wondered about setting up groups of students who would be responsible for leaving comments on the blogs of other classes we talk with. I emphasized the fact that while we are not responsible for the blogs of other people, we should try to support them by reading and commenting; just as we hope they do for us.

We also talked about our hybrid model of blogging, where their spaces are both for school and for home and they overwhelmingly decided that this should continue. They liked the freedom and the openness, as well as the safety of this type of space.

In the end we had no solution. I hope they saw the problem clearly of them being less motivated to blog, and they had good ideas, so now I need some time to think of ways to best support them to get them back on track with their blogging. Some ideas that came up today I am thinking of include:

- Establishing a central blog where I can post questions for them to look at, work with, and comment on. They seemed to "crave " a central space where they can read what others have written without having to travel back and forth to various blogs.

- We talked about establishing a central blog where they could have a scribe post information about our day. A difficulty with this is that I teach these same kids for most of their day. We work though science, social studies, language arts, and math. Unlike Darren's work that is purely math - related, which subject gets the "privilege" of a scribe?

- We also talked about allowing them more free posts where they could simply write about what they wanted like a journal instead of requiring them to use their blogs as a reflective space.

- Finally, we discussed the issue of supporting other bloggers both in our class and around the world. Should students be required to comment on other blogs and support other people in their work?

As our blogs evolve, we need to ensure they remain a real space with authentic writing. Setting too many guidelines simply turns blogging into an electronic assignment. On the other side, without change and evolution to meet the needs of the students, and the needs of the learning environment, blogs may fizzle out and become a tool that was a fad. We still have a lot to learn about using them in the best way for ourselves, our students, and our classrooms.

technorati tags: blogging, learning, change

Comments

[Bud Hunt]

Lots of interesting ideas here. I wonder if I can add a suggestions or two.

1. If you're looking for a central location for everyone, could you take their blogs and create some sort of Suprglu page that puts everyone's conent on the same page? Kind of like a public aggregator? I'm not sure if that would be useful, or if it would even work with your software, but I immediately thought of it when I was reading.

2. A scribe post might begin to focus on the events of the day that the scribe finds to be the most important. Such a post won't necessarily serve the same function as in Darren's class, but would still be a good reminder of the events of the day. Those posts might also be useful at the end of the year when it comes time to think back and remember the year. Not sure -- just thinking out loud here.

I hope your students will keep up their good work. It sounds like they're facing what writers, good writers, face everyday -- the challenge of keeping both the writing, and the writer, fresh. I applaud you and them for talking through it.

[Bronwyn G]

Dear Mr Fisher,

Over the next month each subject can have a scribe for a week. That is to say April could do Social Studies next Monday ... (and I can't continue on because I don't know your students).

It's a shame your students have lost their enthusiasm for blogging. I did wonder why there were no blogs after the 20th December and I felt sad. Let's hope they can continue to reflect on their learning in constructivist ways. Which they seem to be doing with the WIKI! Now that's a way to grow and share which I could never get tired of.

Jo McLeay's students willl be back in the academic year, I think (I hope). They were some of the most regular commenters, and they got me to you.

[Darren Kuropatwa]

Lots of good suggestions! As I was reading I thought (actually I said it out loud) how about having 3 or 4 scribes per day? One per subject or one per time period, say two before lunch and two after lunch. Each subject could have an aggregate blog for the scribes to post on, say a blog for math, another for social studies, and so on.

Bud's suprglu suggestion is a good one. Stephen Downes picked up your post and suggested his MyGlu (http://www.downes.ca/myglu.htm) service.