Comments on: Notes on Class Blogging http://www.plannedobsolescence.net/notes-on-class-blogging/ falling indelibly into the past Fri, 25 Jul 2008 16:16:50 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6 By: Scott http://www.plannedobsolescence.net/notes-on-class-blogging/#comment-568 Scott Tue, 13 Dec 2005 14:50:18 +0000 http://www.new.plannedobsolescence.net/?p=296#comment-568 <p>Most of the time I use blogging in my classes, my students have the same responses as yours—especially re: expectations and “taking it seriously.” </p> <p> The first time I had students blog (a couple of years ago), I was very open-ended about it.  The result was that my students felt like they were trying to nail jell-o to a wall, and so they demanded assignments from me, which was fine, but to my mind defeated the purpose, which was to get them to see this new technology as a means of broadening their own intellectual engagements beyond the classroom or the university. </p> <p> I only use blogs in one class now—a writing center tutor training course—and only in it because I want to maintain a running “journal” from year to year as I train these tutors.  These students have the same issues.  They want assignments.  They want direction.  Word lengths.  Topics.  They find it immensely frustrating that I want them to take the initiative and engage in this activity on their own; some of them are even a little offended. </p> <p> I keep wondering whether this thing they do is actually “blogging” or whether it’s something else.  That is, if you take a normally voluntary behavior and require people to engage in it, it ceases to be voluntary—doesn’t it lose something?  Doesn’t it become something else? </p> Most of the time I use blogging in my classes, my students have the same responses as yours—especially re: expectations and “taking it seriously.”

The first time I had students blog (a couple of years ago), I was very open-ended about it.  The result was that my students felt like they were trying to nail jell-o to a wall, and so they demanded assignments from me, which was fine, but to my mind defeated the purpose, which was to get them to see this new technology as a means of broadening their own intellectual engagements beyond the classroom or the university.

I only use blogs in one class now—a writing center tutor training course—and only in it because I want to maintain a running “journal” from year to year as I train these tutors.  These students have the same issues.  They want assignments.  They want direction.  Word lengths.  Topics.  They find it immensely frustrating that I want them to take the initiative and engage in this activity on their own; some of them are even a little offended.

I keep wondering whether this thing they do is actually “blogging” or whether it’s something else.  That is, if you take a normally voluntary behavior and require people to engage in it, it ceases to be voluntary—doesn’t it lose something?  Doesn’t it become something else?

]]>