Just wanted to note some useful summaries by Samantha Blackmon about one of the blog panels at 4Cs last week. I really think it’s interesting, now that there seems to be more and more data to work with, the similar themes that seem to be running through edblogger minds. Seems like public and private posting is at the head of the list. Here’s a part of her description of Terra Williams’ part of the presentation:
When her students maintain both personal blogs and post to the class community blog she finds that their perception of audience differs between the blogs. Student posts to the community blog tend to be more formal and on topic than they are on their personal blogs. Terra made the argument that blogs and blog post titles make students more rhetorically sensitive because they find that they have to be more sound if they want to get their points across quickly and succinctly while still drawing people in to read the blog on a regular basis. Her view of the blog as an extension of the classroom space gets strengthened by the fact that she finds that students posting to the community blog use external links to illustrate their point more often than they do on their personal blogs.
And from Charlie Lowe’s part:
There was even talk of how to get more teachers to blog. Teachers have to stop thinking of blogs as extra work, allow expression of the personal along with the academic, and allow themselves to provide examples of teachers as writers.
I couldn’t agree more. I wish there were at least a couple of people at my school who would take up this exercise, especially the composition teachers. I know the time commitment involved with teaching 60 kids how to write, but teachers writing is almost as important as students writing. I know…maybe we should reduce the schedules of teachers that blog… Yeah. Right.
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