Blog #2 Student feelings toward blogs

Ellis, Josephine. “Student writing blogs: Apprehension, ambivalence or appreciation?” Communication Journal of New Zealand. 11.2 (2010): 7-29. Web. 19 May 2012.

Ellis’s article specifically focuses on student attitudes and perceptions toward blogging (and peer review in those blogs) using the blogging feature within Blackboard. She found that while many students were apprehensive to begin with, at the end of the term, that apprehension decreased. The author first emphasizes that despite the desire to use the latest and greatest technology in the classroom that technology choices must be based on sound pedagogical principle (8). Then, the use of blogs in the course is justified through the literature review.

The author first discusses the previous research on the advantages using blogs in the writing classroom. For example, peer review, collaboration, audience awareness, the ability to approach learning from a constructivist perspective, and reflection (to name a few). The author also includes a brief mention of where to find “some cautionary tales” (9). After addressing the ways the blog has been used, Ellis discusses issues of privacy and how it’s been “dealt with” so far. According to Ellis, some researchers/teachers have required pseudonyms, while others have asked students to keep blogs private and only share with the instructor. The most recent development in dealing with this issue is using “internal blogs” (blogs built into the Learning Management System (LMS) and hosted on the school’s server). Ellis also introduces the research on peer feedback in blogs, which supports the use of them, but also addresses some of the typical issues that are rampant in peer review literature. The final section addresses the research on “disinhibition” and emotions of the students participating in blogging.

The study itself surveyed 339 students in a first year composition course via a questionnaire. The blog required students to analyze a piece of their own expository writing and provide guided feedback to classmates. The questionnaire asked primarily “how do you feel” questions with five emoticon options ranging from very happy/confident to very unhappy/unconfident. Two of the ten questions allowed for open-ended response. The results showed that students felt the Blackboard blogging feature to be easy to use and addressed any issues of privacy. While some students desired the ability to use a pseudonym (something Blackboard doesn’t allow), this inability prevented “destructive” comments. Students overall responded the most positively to the ability to receive feedback from peers.

This study is useful to my own research because I intend, in my pedagogy project, to use Blackboard (an internal blog), and the research support this use as a solution to privacy issues outside of the classroom. In addition, understanding student attitudes toward using this technology for peer feedback is useful when considering it as a course component because it emphasizes valuable ways to use the technology to support sound pedagogy and aligns with my anecdotal experience. This article is also useful for its literature review that focuses on the research on several important areas related to blog use in the writing classroom.

Blogs and FYC

Tyron, Charles. “Writing and Citizenship: Using Blogs to Teach First-Year Composition.” Pedagogy  6.2 (2006): 128-132. Web. 19 May 2012.

This article discusses one instructor’s use of blogs in an FYC course. The article is begins by stating that his particular goal is "for students to take charge of their writing, to provide them with a sense that writing matters” and makes the claim that blogs have the ability to do this. He has assigned different blog activities in different FYC classes that focus on both reading and writing blog for the purpose of rhetorical and critical analysis. He argues that by directing students to a variety blogs that are politically charged and having them analyze them, he allowed his students to consider issues of citizenship, argumentation and audience. While it’s not something that can be created on the fly, Tyson was lucky enough to have several of the bloggers that his students were reading begin to interact with his students. These outcomes have helped his students to take charge of their writing by giving them their own writing space and allowing them to form opinions on the writing of others, but at the same time provide a sense that writing matters because of the public nature of the blog.

I chose this article in particular because I use blogs in my online classroom, and I’ve used them a few different ways at this point, but still feel that I’m floundering in my use of them in a FYC class. Each semester, I consider removing them as a required part of the course because I don’t want to create busy work and question the value, but the students (in their end of semester reflections) all claim the blog to be their favorite part of the course because they’ve learned about audience. Right now, I require an “informative researched blog” and have found that the results are much like Tysons: my students own their writing and appreciate audience (even the small audience of the classroom-I used to require Blogger, but tech issues and anxiety made me move it into Blackboard). The blog, its pedagogical implications, and the “how and why” are things I’m still struggling with; however, Tyson’s article will help me rethink my approach as well as guide me (with his references page) to other sources for both support and reproach for using this tool.