On Classroom Blogging 3: Sucking It Dry: Teachers as Vampires
with 9 comments
Print This Post
The last two or three posts–and the comments, thank you :)–have conjured depressing visions in my head at random moments. I’m a bit worried about the future of student blogging.
I fear we teachers are going to ruin it for the learners.
“Blogging is just another way to turn in homework.” That’s the sentence that scares me. Because that’s how non-blogging teachers, and perhaps those unfamiliar with literacy pedagogy–communication across the curriculum, writing to learn, authentic writing, and more–will probably use blogging in the classroom.
And it will become drudgery. And the students (not learners here, because “teacher” can’t let go of being “teacher,” dominating, squelching, and dictating to students) will bang out the minimum for “blog homework,” as in old days, and turn to something authentic. Like their MySpace.
Toward a solution (or at least mitigation): train teachers in the philosophy of blogging before letting them use it in their classrooms.
Photo credit: Tampen at Flickr.
If you like this post, please spread it: 
- "Teachers as Blogging Vampires" and "Blogging as Conversation" Gone a Bit Surreal
- More on Protecting Classroom Bloggers from Teachers
- Teacher Think-aloud on Student Blogging (a Fresh Start)
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
Clay - I am intrigued. I don’t know if I agree with you completely. And I’m not saying that because I’m trying to politely state my disagreement. I honestly don’t know. What touched me was your mention of blogging replacing homework. You make an excellent point and rightly focus on pedagogy that is a necessary component behind any valid teaching. The last few months I have discovered a lot of the web 2.0 tools that are being used in education - a journey that I’ve undertaken on my own in the building. It’s been a whirlwind tour, if you will. However, I think in the last week or two I’ve found myself pulling back, purposely not reading all the feeds in my bloglines or not trying too hard to integrate the wiki work I started with my next unit. The fact is, I’m still wrapping my brain around it, and I don’t know how ready I am to set up more embedded web 2.0 tools. I believe in them, but I need to do more. In the meantime, I’m going back simply putting the homework on the blog. And I guess that’s why I don’t know if I disagree with you. I think you’re right, but maybe I don’t want to believe that I’m one of those teachers. Is that just me trying to make an excuse? Maybe it’s more of me recognizing that I need to pause and reflect and train myself some more. Thanks - as always - for helping me think.
Mr. Miller
7 Mar 07 at 8:32 pm
Hi Bing,
I don’t know if I agree with myself either
It’s only a worry right now, and a hunch.
I think the distinction to be made is this: If it’s your individual blog, it should be yours to show your own developmental journey through your educational years. It’s _your_ blog (yes, guidelines I can see are necessary, but beyond that I’m suspicious).
For hw assignmets–and even the best are cookie-cutter and non-individualized, aren’t they?–maybe hit “comment” on the _class_ blog? That I can see….
Though it still creates an association of blogging and hw that I don’t like.
Moodle _feels_ “schooly” because it _is_ so: that’s its purpose. So HW on Moodle (or a wiki, maybe) seem fine.
I just see blogs as a precious writerly thing–really the most special literacy tool of all for personal development.
And to keep it untainted by associations with “school” and “HW” is something that’s seeming more and more important to me. It threatens to poison the blog-well, if you know what I mean.
Nice to hear from you. I feel your pain as far as being solo in your experiments. And we’re all dizzied, and often, by what we’re trying. And I, too, have stepped back from reading so many blogs and pulled back to focus and reflect.
Seems like that’s part of a “natural 2.0 cycle” for a lot of people: dive in, saturate, dry out, reflect, dive in 2.0, etc.
Clay Burell
7 Mar 07 at 10:23 pm
And you’d be amazed–actually, you wouldn’t; it’s really predictable–how many teachers in my ongoing blogging staff development group still are looking for just another way to have students hand in homework, a way that’s more “fun” and “in their world” than the paper model, but otherwise no different. Immersion in the world of blogs and their philosophy is key; without that, there’s no hope. At least none that I see.
Jeff
7 Mar 07 at 10:32 pm
I am digging this line of questioning that you have undertaken. The most dreaded thing to hear from a member of my staff is that comparison of blogging to an existing format; the one I hear often is “threaded discussion” or “discussion board.”
A few weeks ago, Will Richardson spoke at a conference I attended and his take has greatly influenced my thinking: get your teachers blogging and let them see the value of it before they bring it to their students.
Some of our favorite bloggers are nothing short of prolific, offering up several posts per day. When teachers see them, that is intimidating. Do we show them those posts because they are worthy? Or do we show them where to look for blogs about what they are passionate about (show them technoriati and Google Blog search)?
My hat is in the ring for letting the teachers play before they thrust it onto the students because if they don’t carve out their own use for it, it is most certainly going to become just another way to hand in homework.
Patrick Higgins
8 Mar 07 at 1:10 pm
I am afraid many teachers today don’t know what the word pedagogy means. I see too many teachers going through the motion and don’t have one clue about why they are doing what they do. I agree blogging could turn out just to be one more chore or one more thing a teacher has to check off their list by the end of the year.
PS I don”t think many teachers read or write. That has been my experience in the last 20 years and mainly that has been language arts teachers. They have learned the language and they speak and the administrators and curriculum specialist believe them. We in bad times….
Bill Gaskins’s last blog post..A Must Read
Bill Gaskins
18 Jan 08 at 9:06 am
I agree completely. Our kids explain to many of our faculty that they are using blogs wrong. They use them as a forum to have a discussion or as a way to post a traditional essay online and have people more or less peer edit. I’m hoping to change that with a couple of english classes next year. I gave them your blogging set up from a ways back and have them reading a few real blogs now to get a sense of what it really is. The new NCTE proposal is helping me get a little buy in with english teachers http://www.ncte.org/about/gov/129117.htm. Thinking I need to make them blog a little before they start next year. Thanks for making me think!
Elizabeth Helfant’s last blog post..Establishing a Culture of Learning
Elizabeth Helfant
31 Mar 08 at 1:55 am
Wow, Elizabeth, you’re deep in the archives!
Your link to NCTE doesn’t work, and I’m curious to read it. Can you fix it?
Thanks
Clay Burell
31 Mar 08 at 2:12 am
[...] kill the learning that is possible when students have a simple laptop and a blog. This snippet from a post from back then says it all, and my views haven’t changed on this one. (Add “and laptop learning” [...]
An Old Prophecy Confirmed? On the Uses and Abuses of Laptop Learning | Beyond School
29 May 08 at 4:10 am
[...] online communication practices * NEED!!!!!! for teachers to have a new mindset - Check this blog post out for inspiration Others? Come up with your own. One resource that could be used to inspire more [...]
KSTF Blogging Workshop Phase3 « blogging about blogging
21 Jul 08 at 11:27 am