Hard Questions for Teachers Who Teach Blogging - TTT48 04.11.07
Posted by Paul Allison on April 13th, 2007
TTT48 04.11.07 Hard Questions for Teachers Who Teach Blogging [52:20m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadAfter a few months of blogging with all of her classes at YouthVoices.net, Susan Ettenheim sent Paul Allison a few questions:
- What do you do about the student who is on-line more (has that luxury) doing stronger work than the student who has less experience with being on-line?
- How can we help the struggling writer to be more than a struggling writer in his/her blog?
- What happens when blogging only continues to encourage the image of a student as a “C” writer instead of opening up new doors and possibilities?
- For the person who is not a natural blogger, what are we doing to allow and invite them into the arena?
- Some people take to this right away and “get it.” What are successful strategies for helping someone who doesn’t “get it.”?
- What happens when you sit one-on-one with someone and you are able to catch his or her interest in an intensely personal way, they write one great blog post, then never do another.
- How do we help the student who isn’t getting beyond Internet chat language in his/her comments?
- What of the corrections/comments that we give really make the blogging any better?
- In an attempt to give fair grades we do a lot of counting. How does this process make the student more able to contribute in an on-line democracy in a powerful way?
- How can we better connect what we are trying to do in Youth Voices to the power to participate in an on-line world (job networking, finding internship possibilities, it’s who you know that counts but you can make who you know)…
- How can we model better what we are trying to teach?
- How do you balance correcting a student’s grammar, spelling, and capitalization with encouraging voice and participation?
- How do you get student posts to become more interesting and rich and still acknowledge that it is OK to write about the academic pressures of high school?
- How do you teach students to have voice when it seems that no-one is listening; example a student writes 3-5 really thoughtful posts and receives 0 comments.
- How do we avoid getting to the point where the good students are doing good work and the bad students are doing bad work and everyone is getting bored?
We imagine that others who have their students blog have some questions too. What are yours?
April 10th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
Susan/Paul,
Great post. I work with struggling readers/writers indirectly(I work with literacy coaches who work with struggling readers/writers directly)and have been processing many of these same questions in my own head. Additionally, I’m struggling with my own blog writing, so several of these questions hit home with my own struggles.
I can only say that I came to this post from Vicki’s coolcat blog and if you are, as she says,
“… connected with (your) students…(You)learn(s) from them and have an open mind and not ashamed of letting them teach (you)…(and)(you) are an encourager…”
then in my opinion you are on the right track and you will be having impact on those questions already.
That said, as I read you questions, I kept thinking about providing opportunity, providing constructive models, providing multiple opportunities to revisit their writings, creating an environment where they feel safe to fail, and, most importantly, provide a teacher who will encourage them to keep trying even when they may not seem to be.
All of this brings me back to Dave Warlick’s post about measuring great teachers’ attributes. The part about your teaching that may not be measurable is the encourager part, but the part about being a reflective practitioner is measurable, and we know that being reflective is part of what makes great teachers better. I know I look forward to reading some of the answers posted here as well as the questions that you provoke others to voice. Thanks again for the post.
April 11th, 2007 at 12:19 am
[…] education take a look at the list posted by Paul Allison over at Teachers Teaching Teachers titled Hard Questions for Teachers Who Teach Blogging . Many of them beg the even bigger question of whether blogging is indeed for everybody and will we […]
April 11th, 2007 at 3:03 pm
What do you think is the best free blog host for school kids to use to show their work to students and teachers?
April 12th, 2007 at 7:56 am
Hello, amazing educators. I am trying to figure out how to get in touch with you four. We are really needing some help on best practices for peer review for the Horizon Project and I need some advice! Cheryl said I should contact you but I don’t have your e-mails and can’t find them anywhere! PLEASE e-mail me at coolcatteacher at gmail.com (Click on About us page at the site to see where we’re going) If anyone else reading this thinks they have expertise to lend, please contact me as well. thanks!
April 12th, 2007 at 11:21 am
After reading the first few of Susan’s 20 questions, I’m wondering how different the answers would be if we were considering writing using paper and pencil? There are always stronger writers who enjoy writing and write more (and thus grow stronger) than others who find writing a challenge and therefore avoid writing. The big difference, as I see it, in blogging publicly, and writing for a more restricted audience -teacher, classmates, parents - is the response. I know that when I post something, I’m eager for a response and when I don’t get it, I tend to back away from future posts. But, writing for the teacher, the class assignment, means I write whether I want to (there’s a real purpose) or not. I think I’m going to try to respond to each of these questions on my blog - which I haven’t been on in a few months.