this blog will provide those of us interested in theorizing blog use in the classroom with a space to hash out ideas, propose theories, invite readers, and debate their possibilities and limitations

 
Doreen -- I think you're the only one who can change the template html. Can you put up links to class blogs? I just went to Chuck's eng1101 blog and started reading. I'd really like a list of our teacher-authored blogs for classes and the blogs we use to process the teaching and other stuff. Would like to be able to shuttle back and forth easily; also might be helpful for other readers of this blog to have those links handy. i'll email you the html i'd like for my links, since i can't get the html to show up here as text.:

Dr. Shattuck's blog for Advanced Composition

Spidergrrl's Web - Shattuck's blog

posted by Sandra at 7:23 PM

 
hey y'all...so nice to hear chuck and doreen's voices here. in response to doreen's query, please post to my blog as you will...mebbe a bi-weekly overview. shouldn't take more than 15 minutes. ok, mebbe that's optimistic.

i'm psyched about using blogs in advanced comp. and am learning potfuls...about: how to approach the concept of blogging with low-end users; how to further interrogate my own pedagogical stance/persona; how writing changes, develops when publication is in the mix --- so this whole interweave of writing/publication/readers that Doreen refers to in recent post -- intriguing. i've been emphasizing authentic audience and service learning in the class. so students need to get two outside readers for their individual blogs. i've asked 3 people so far to be my outside readers: Doreen, cuz she knows about this stuff; my friend Julie, feminist rhetorician at Illinois State, cuz she's a great writer and teacher; and Jarrod Patterson, who is a colleague and knows A&M students -- teaches developmental english and first-year. my friend Ana Sisnett, a stellar member of the blogerati (the one who introduced me to the medium) and executive director of austin free-net, is also reading and i'm about to send her an invitation cuz she's already commenting on the blog. Ana is totally rocking with her Typepad blogs. Um, I also love my Typepad blogs. A lot.

yesterday class met in a computer lab in the new engineering building. that's the only time we'll be able to use the lab cuz it's for comp. sci. students, so i need to set up something regular for every thursday class. here's the assignment i passed out:

• If you have not yet set up your blog, do so now. Go to www.blogger.com. You will create a user name and password, then a title and description for your blog, and then a web address. Blogger presents you with a page that has http://|_____________|.blogspot.com and whatever you put in the text entry box becomes your blog address.


• POSTING for TODAY: read my blog at http://eng304classblog.blogspot.com and then post your reactions to your own blog. POSTING for THIS WEEK: write about your revision plans.


• TO POST: remember that to post to your blog, you must first go to www.blogger.com and sign in with your username and password.

Here are the main glitches that popped up: 1) folks confused "blog" with "posting," so that when they accessed their blog account, they clicked on "Create a new blog" instead of clicking on the blog they already created and then posting. [When I realized this during the lab, I stopped and explained that a blog basically meant a separate website. Every time they clicked on "Create a new blog," they were creating another web page.] 2) students often sent me blog addresses that led to "page not found" messages. most of these errors were due to not re-publishing the blog after saving changes. I think I can help with a lot of this stuff with a quick and basic discussion of computer-to-computer talk, why posting and publishing are different. So here's a clear case where writing best proceeds when the technology is fully explained. Also, I make assumptions that my students know stuff they don't yet know. That's due partially to forgetting what it's like to be a new user and partially to not being able to read the huge variants in student techno skill sets. 3) many blog titles end up being not too appropriate mainly cuz of the confusion when the blog is first set up --- differences between blog title, description, username, URL that gets designated. i could have prevented some of this confusion if i had been more familiar with the new blogger interface. earlier interface simply used username as the URL.

I think I'll stop now. I want to go look at Chuck's stuff he posted about. Will try and post more regularly here. With all the blogs i've got going, i'm starting to suffer from a wee case of blogertigo (blogging + vertigo). I'd like to talk more, too, about how blogging with the class affects my pedagogy, writing, teaching persona.

posted by Sandra at 6:37 PM