Blogs to Communicate with Our Members

OUSA is looking at instituting a blog on its homepage to improve communication with our members. It is hard, however, to point out to people the amount of work that is required for a blog to be useful. At this stage, the powers that be envisage the blog will be updated weekly. However this is nowhere near often enough to keep people engaging with the blog. Indeed, when Twitter was offered as an alternative (since the micro-blogging style is much easier to update) this will apparently make the page too cluttered. Also, the blog itself will be a micro blog. If it is going to be a micro blog then why is it a blog?

Spotlight Session Notes

I realise this post is a little late but there are still some things I need to mention about last week's Spotlight on Teaching and Learning. I found the second day of symposium a little un-inspiring so in this post I will focus on the event of the first day. Obviously, I found the last paper session of the day - Blogs and Wikis in Learning: Sharing the Experience, another Library sponsored session - the most inspiring. This session was a Panel Discussion featuring Anton Angelo (Student and Information Technology Services, University of Otago), Charlotte Brown (Reference Department, Central Library, University of Otago), Erika Pearson (Media, Film, and Communications Studies, University of Otago), and Noel Waite (Design Studies, University of Otago). Each of these speakers focused on some aspect of incorporating Web 2.0 technologies into teaching students.

I was particularly impressed by Dr Pearson. For a paper on cybersocieties, Dr Pearson set the students the task of blogging regularly. These posts were then assessed at the end of the semester. This was yet another instance of blogs working. Although there were still different levels of engagement - but it should be remembered that traditional teaching methods have the different levels of engagement - the students seemed to accept the challenge. Of course, with a blog it is easy for the lecturer to post comments that serve as further prompting for the students rather than them developing their assessment in solitude and therefore having only one chance to "get it right."

What I found most interesting was the flexibility that blogs allowed for in learning. For instance, most of the comments and even posts were made in the middle of the night. This has great implications for student involvement since - with an open forum on the Internet - we can deliver classes which are tailored to students' lives; we can have a virtual tutorial at 3am in the morning! It was also interesting that on-line participation increased off-line communication. Particularly with students whose first language is not English or they are just shy, they can post what they want to say on their blog and then this can give people in the class better insight into their personality and these points of convergence can stimulate greater in-class involvement. This is rather surprising since there seems to be a prevalent view that on-line participation re-enforces physical isolation. It seems that this is not always the case.

There seemed a great need to explain why blogs are a suitable assessment tools. To me it seems as if we have to spend all our energy in justifying ourselves then what is going to be left for actually doing the work. This just hints at the blatant paranoia about emerging methods/tools. It seems as if we are still so stuck in the "old ways" that when something new comes along our first duty is to attack it - beyond the point of constructive critique - since we are too afraid to dabble and get our feet wet. Indeed, some of the students of Dr Pearson's paper failed to have a sense of play in their blogs. This was because they did not realise the full potential of the "simple" operations of the medium. It seems strange that young people are coming to university without a sense of adventure when it comes to Web 2.0 technologies.

Reflective Blogs: Redux

This morning's session at the Spotlight on Teaching and Learning went really well I thought. I was a bit apprehensive that I was going to be offering my own humble perspective on how blogs can be mobilised for student assessment. More particularly, I could not offer any information on how this would work from an academic perspective. It turned out that with the other two presentations - Fostering Learner Engagement and Cultural Understanding Through Foreign Language Blogging, Antoine Alm (Languages and Cultures, University of Otago), and The Use of a Blog as the Medium for Online Role Plays in Nutrition in Post Graduate Study, Megan Gibbons (Midwifery and Otago Institute of Sport and Adventure, Otago Polytechnic) and Sandra Elias (Midwifery, Otago Polytechnic) - my presentation actually provided a point of contrast in that it provided feedback on how learners view this experience. In this post, I will elaborate on my previous post - my presentation - and augment it with the points I raised that were not outlined in that post as well as the discussion that followed my presentation.

Further Points:

• Blogs have the potential to let students be much more honest. I know that I am much more my-self on-line than off. Posting in a blog means we do not have to worry about how people are actually viewing us.
• Blogs allow us to develop a portfolio which we can later use for things such as funding applications and for admission to certain academic programmes.
• A blog is much quicker to maintain than a manual journal.
  

Discussion Points:

• A blog can provide documentation of practice which a practice researcher can later use when they draft their contextualising document.
• Blogs provide the option to post comments. Although this could be a reasonably rare occurrence - at least it was in two instances of blogs used for assessment today - the option is still there. It is better, in my view, to provide this option rather than not. Even if students don't take it up at least there is the availability for them to comment.
• Blogs are much more customisable than discussion boards - particularly Blackboard. A blog becomes a student's own space. Although this can have a down-side in that a lot of time can be spent getting the look of a blog the way a student wants and this can distract from other studies.
• There are privacy issues with a blog. If you are going to blog about problems you encountered then you need to do so in a way that the person with whom you are having the problem cannot be publicly identified. Having said this, I found blogging about the problem let me focus on ways to solve it rather than letting me simply do my old trick of running away and hiding. Of course, there is also the phenomenon that a blog can be a more neutral way to resolve conflict: instead of confronting someone - which may exacerbate the problem - they may read your post and this may guide them in their own endeavours.

I found this session rather invigorating. I was also pleased to see academics talking about the successes they had with their assessments. It seemed a very positive step forward in mobilising this tool for educational purposes.

Reflective Blogs

Whence am I Coming?
This paper is informed by both my participation in the Digital Information Literacy Project as well as my experience as a Theatre Studies student and a director of theatre.

Digital Information Literacy Project

• Supported by the University of Otago Library
• Action Research based enquiry
• Examining how Theatre Studies and the Library can mobilise Web 2.0 technologies to increase communication.
• From this enquiry it became clear that blogs were a good (and easy) way to increase communication.

Theatre Studies

• For 400-level papers we were required to keep a journal
• Most of us had very little idea about what was expected of us - and the lecturer was understandably anxious about giving us exemplars
• We were not encouraged to share our journals and there was little incentive to write regularly

This report is coming from a student perspective; I have found blogging a useful way to informally improve my theatre practice

Blogs Provide an Alternative to Traditional Journalling

• They have the potential to keep students more "on-track" because the lecturer can keep an eye on their posting behaviour
• They have the potential for immediate feedback from both the lecturer and others in the class. Particularly when journalling is undertaken by a small class they can make the task seem less isolating
• Because they can be media-rich - allowing easy posting of pictures and video - they provide a much greater range of creative potential
• In a theatrical context - particularly when a student is creating a piece of theatre that will be shown to the public - they have the potential to heighten awareness of the audience so that audience could be much more "informed" about a production. Blogging is also a useful life-learning skill that theatre students can take with them if they continue with a theatre career.

Making Connections

Apart from becoming rather bogged down with information - or should that be blogged down? - my reading about blogging in tertiary eduction is starting to make some connections. For our Advanced Directing paper, a large proportion of our grade was for a reflective journal. We were supposed to make frequent entries into this journal but were not given much guidance about what these entries were supposed to look like. This was a conscious decision on the part of the lecturer - and a decision I actually agreed with - since she did not want us to just copy an exemplar. However, as a student, such a decision does not help the student. We were looking for concrete guidance and were not terribly interested in the dogmatic philosophy behind the assessment. On the other hand, we were not given any guidance - in the form of articles to read - on why we were doing this assignment and what we were supposed to be getting out of it.

This journal was supposed to be a record of our learning throughout the year. Since such a large proportion of our grade rested on it, however, the lecturer checked it once during the year. This was the only feedback we received before the journal became due. There was little incentive for us to share our journals - or entries from them - to get an idea of what our peers were doing. Also, because we were not encouraged to share the journals, many of us fell into the trap of not writing in them frequently but rather back-dating a lot of entries after we realised that months had gone by without writing anything.

It seems that a blog would have been an ideal solution to this problem. Not only would this have provided us with more guidance from what our peers were doing but it would also have fulfilled the spirit of the exercise more fully since having a public record would have kept us honest about our posting. These blogs could have also helped increase our collegiality - particularly important since there were only 5 of us in the class - and increase our number as we became part of a much wider community.

Power to the People

Back, Karla and Barwick, Daniel. "High Tech's Double Edge: Creating Organizationally Appropriate Responses to Emerging Technologies." On The Horizon: 15.1 (2007) 28-36. 22 Jul. 2008 Emerald Journals. .

Whilst the "emerging technologies" this article addresses are blogs it regards them more from a management perspective rather than a practitioner's one. It is based on a case study of the situation at the State University of New York College of Technology at Alfred in 2006. In this situation, a public blog became staff and students' only outlet to air grievances with the college's president. This forum became so powerful as to effectively end the president's tenure. However, instead of decrying blogs in general Back and Barwick argue that administrations need to understand it so they can deploy it in their favour and prevent the college receiving bad publicity.

Selected quotes (resplendant with annotations):

"Little attention is paid to the leadership/management challenges and opportunities these technologies create" (28)
"Openly critical academic blogs present administrators with unique opportunities for increased effectiveness, and most of their supposed drawbacks are really just indicative of disguised institutional problems of which such blogs are merely symptomatic" (29)
"A public college presidency ended not simply because of the president's failure to meet expectations, but also as a direct result of an administration's inability to adequately respond to a private blog"

This just goes to show how powerful this method of communication can be; since blogs are popular publishing, word can spread quickly around the blogosphere so, if the right information is spread, you can reach a large audience very quickly. You just need to tap into this tool to make sure that - in your opinion - the right information is spread.

"Free speech is traditionally regarded as a cornerstone of the campus environment" (31)

Yet this article points out that it is only free speech of a certain type - i.e. upholding the system - that is the true cornerstone of the campus environment. Should such a phenomenon be unchallenged?

"Students are an integral part of the operations of the campus. They live on the campus, work on the campus, and in many cases help govern the campus. [...] Students are also implicit ambassadors for the college and both active and passive recruiters as well" (31-32)

If we teach students a way to incorporate new technologies into their formal studies then we are better assisting them to cope with future challenges. Indeed, most students don't need to be taught how to use emerging technologies - the computer literacy of a large percentage of tertiary students these days is astounding - but rather on how to use them effectively to manage/store information and create/synthesise knowledge.

"Although many believe that academia often leads with the integration of new technologies, history does not support this belief"

Indeed, if academia does not start making up some of the ground they lost then universities are in danger of being left behind as places of learning; if the system does not adapt then it is in danger of being seen as antiquated and irrelevant. There is also the wider issue of universities being slow to change generally. Is this a symptom of trying to account for tradition and new technologies? Also, because things have been done for a certain way for the entirety of living memory then when something new comes along there is a great sense of inertia which this new technology has to counter.

"We believe that administrators should seek ways to use new technologies to increase the level of communication(or to provide alternative means of communication) across the campus, and that the result would be improved perception in the work environment" (33)

Indeed, the same goes for lecturers communicating with students. Do we not provide a richer experience when we teach the students why something is important? What better way to help inculcate this why than with a blog which reflects the personal philosophies of a lecturer?

What to Blog

I have encountered a problem with one of my blogs. I set up one blog to publicise what I am doing when directing plays. The purpose of this blog is to entice the audience to come and see the show. As such, I don't want to give the audience the impression that things are not going well. This is a particular bind for me because I tend to notice the negative. Consequently, I find myself blogging about my process more on my reflective practice blog. In a way, this nullifies the intent of my blog since it was set up to keep the audience informed on what I am doing so the audience can better appreciate the production. It just goes to show that you need to consider what you are blogging and the purpose of your blog before you post an entry.

Reflective Practice and Blogs

Now that the opening of The Winter's Tale draws nigh, my attention is turning more towards what I have done. I believe that throughout this project I have been far more self-aware than I have been previously. Part of this greater self-awareness has come from the fact that I have been blogging about my process - this blog - throughout. Having to make my thoughts more coherent for someone else to read helps focus me on what actually is important rather than letting myself ramble on too much. Also, having Google Analytics installed helps me to keep updating my blog regularly to see if you are coming back to read what I am writing or how many new people are reading my pearls of wisdom. And - because the act of writing something makes it more clear - I am also finding ways to solve my problems and am gaining the heart to face them.

I have, however, encountered two particular problems when I have been blogging: having an advertising blog and actors' anonymity. My Current Projects Blog is designed to advertise the production. So, obviously, it would be inappropriate to mention certain things in there. Then, if I am having problems with certain actors, I must be very careful in how I speak about them. Particularly since there may be nothing inherently "wrong" with what they are doing but there may just be a personality clash in which I myself am not completely blameless. Then again, this is a general point about blogs: what you write is in the public domain and may remain there in perpetuity so if you bag people you may be looking like an ass; in looking like an ass, you write yourself as an ass in indelible ink.

Blogging Roxors my Soxors!

I have now had experience in why blogging is such a good idea! Not only does it let you get feedback quickly – or it would if you had a large audience – but it also lets you get things off your chest. Particularly in theatre where you may not have many people to talk over your problems with, you can put it on the web for he world to see. However, you need to be careful that you are not going to damage anyone – actors can be VERY fragile at times – and ensure you are aiming to affirm.

You also help build a community of practice. Sometimes we have similar problems and instead of re-inventing the wheel we can find someone who has had a similar problem and see how they handled it. Of course, it is always a good thing to see that other people are facing the same problems as you are; you needn't feel so isolated when you work as a director.

The third reason, and perhaps the most important, is that it is just plain fun! Not only is it fun to actually write your posts but there is the joy of making your blog look and function just how you want it too. It is also a good – and relatively easy – way of improving your skills in writing web code.

Blogger Things

I have recently installed Google Analytics on my blogs. This is such a motivator since it really makes you want to think a little more about what you write to entice your readers back. However, my friend and I were trying to figure out how many people had accessed my blog yesterday. After about 30 minutes I realised that you simply needed to alter the date range in map veiw. It is such a simple solution that I really can't believe that it took us both that long to figure out!

Various Sundry Titbits

I first wanted to post something that was of the utmost importance and I felt I REALLY needed to post - but do you think I can remember what it is?

I have been working on reading published articles for academics' blogs to help show the Theatre Studies Programme what benefit they could gain for blogging. The benefits mentioned are all pretty obvious: greater collaboration, quicker publishing time, increased exposure, more freedom to mix the personal and professional (one thing I particularly admire). The negative aspects all seem to boil down to one piece of advice: what you write online is viewable by everyone. Pretty common sense really...However, I will be putting up something a wee bit more fulsome here eventually.

Now I remember what I was going to write about: why am I exploring on-line video editors when their off-line counterparts are often much more powerful and just as simple to use (I am thinking here of iMovies which has been designed with those with little or no video editing experience). However, the advantage with an online editor is that you do not have to have a terminal set aside as a video-editing station but students can use any terminal on campus - or indeed off. The good thing about a free service is that there is no further cost outlay to provide software licences.

However, it seems I have hit somewhat of a stumbling block. There are many tools out there designed to share your clips or add social bookmarks but very few for creating your own clips. Is this because the coding is so difficult? Is it too hard to make such tools easy enough to use? I know not...

Dawn and I also had a chat about online photo editors. In particular, we discussed those which claim to improve your photos. Whilst it could be a good idea to use these to improve that pic you snapped spur of the moment there could be some danger in relying on them heavily. This danger comes from diluting the basic skills of photography. I am not saying we shouldn't digitally manipulate images after we take them - this is a common-place and is part of photography. It is just that you can only improve the quality of an image so much; you can never make a bad image good with digital manipulation. Also, these editors are designed for web display. If you are using them for any purpose other than web display they will be effectively useless.

Today was also a first for me. I made my first comment on a colleague's blog. I found the blog of one of the Otago Polytechnic participants who is undertaking a project very similar to mine so could provide her with, I hope, helpful information on where she can locate tools to create an online slide show.

I also have discovered the danger in online tools where you quickly update what you are doing - such as Twitter and Facebook. My boss is my friend on Facebook and saw that I had updated my status somewhat flippantly. You see, I had insinuated that I sometimes do not apply myself fully to the task at hand. This, however, was not my intended meaning. I simply meant to state that I had the energy/motivation to get work done - two things that can begin to fade when you work the 5-9 shift. Just a word of caution: be clear in your communication and you can avoid possibly embarrassing situations. Incidentally, this brings me back to the topic with which I started my blog as this is one of the warnings that constantly cropped up in the readings I was doing for academic blogging...

Wikis or Blogs?

I couldn't quite see the difference between wikis and blogs. To me they both seem to serve a similar function. The focus here, however, will be on using these two tools for collaboration.

A wiki has an advantage because if you are working on a document collaboratively then anyone can edit the document live. However, you have no record of the original. With a blog, you can post the document and then comment on suggested changes. This may be a better option for creating collaborative documents. Of course there is also Google docs, which is perhaps an even better option.

Also, I can't help feeling that the purpose of a wiki is to allow everyone to edit the information. Something really sticks with me with the fact that you create a wiki that not every one has access to edit seems against the spirit of a wiki.

Reflection?

Well, I have been asked to reflect on what I am doing in the DIL. Last night, however, I realised that because I was not carrying out reflection in action I could not reflect on action since I wasn't even recording what my actions were! Consequently, my day yesterday was not quite as effective as it could have been.

I did start working on Wikis and video editing so I will summarise what I remember.

Simon Hart was keen that I look at wikis for the Theatre Studies Programme to use as a way of collaborating between staff since they could post an entry and other staff could edit it and provide feedback thereby having a living document. The other option for these purposes is to have a blog with an RSS feed so staff knew when a change had been made; the changes would be in their face rather than staff having to go and hunt for them. My next step is to set up a wiki to see just how they work from a practical perspective.

I also skulked around the net to see if I could find either wikis or blogs which fostered a community of practice. This was very hard since most of them talk about theatre in general rather than specific forms of theatre - queer theatre was the community of practice with which I was concerned. My thoughts here lead me in the direction of setting up a community site for queer theatre. Although the problem will be buy-in since, for the site to be of any use, the community would need to embrace it fully. Add to this the phenomenon that theatre practitioners have very little time/effort to update a blog or other site this task may be quite difficult.

I then changed my concentration ever so slightly to look at on-line video editors. Why? A practitioner could use them to report/reflect on their work (if they are working in a traditional paradigm); they could be blended with live theatre; they could be used as a digital performance. I am using a web 2.0 directory to find on-line editors to use. So far this has been fruitful but has not been carried out in a co-ordinated fashion. My colleague Allison Brown, Digital Initiatives Librarian, who had the brilliant idea that I compare the different editors I find on a spreadsheet. What a fantastic idea! And, I know, you are thinking it is also so banal but my mind is working slowly these days. So, you can look forward to more...

More about Blogger

I have just decided to see how useful blogger is when you use different blogs for different purposes. I have since had blogs on different platforms and multiple blogger blogs but under different accounts but have migrated them all onto this account to see if it makes life easier or not. Time will tell...

Twitter is Great!

I have just discovered Twitter. Whilst it may seem rather pointless to have a blog in which you can only post 140 characters at a time it is a great way to keep people updated on what you are up to. With such small posts, you don't need to set aside much time - as I find myself doing for these posts - but you can quickly scribble something down. And, what is more, it is really fun!