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.

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.

Should Academics Blog?

Here I summarise 7 articles which each take academic blogging as their focus. These summaries are mostly quotes from the particular papers with a little of my own commentary - appended in italics. The aim of this post is to provide academics which will, I hope, entice them to blog professionally to:

1. Increase exposure of their programme.
2. Provide a model for students who have to submit reflective journals.
3. Offer a different format for reflective journals.

• Glenn, David. "Scholars who Blog: The soapbox of the Digital Age Draws a Crowd of Academics." The Chronicle of Higher Education (June 6, 2003): http://chronicle.com/free/v49/i39/39a01401.htm

"Academic bloggers worry that the medium smells faddish, ephemeral."
"Academic bloggers are sometimes subject to twinges of self-consciousness and guilt, and fear that their elders will thing they're misbehaving."
"There are no financial returns to blogging."

Yet a department/programme can increase enrolments - a form of financial return - through the wider publicity their blog can generate. There is also the chance to raise the institution's good-will factor as well as the possibility of picking up publishing contracts. All these benefits are not tangible "financial returns" but blogs can increase financial returns in the long run.

"Anyone at all can read and comment on their discussions."
"Blogs also appear to bring full professors, adjuncts, and students onto a level field."
"Write on your blog only when you think you have something to say."

This article provides advice and information for academics who are starting out in the blogsphere. Glenn, correctly, sees the blogsphere as a more open, democratic sharing of knowledge but this openness - currently at least - challes established publishing protocols of what constitutes "research."

• Tribble, Ivan. "First Person: Bloggers Need Not Apply." The Chronicle of Higher Education (July 8, 2005): http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2005/07/2005070801c.htm (accessed July 10, 2008).

"But it's best for job seekers to leave their personal lives mostly out of the interview process."

I am not sure how this impossibility is to be achieved - is he asking that we should have some nasty - not to mention mentally unstable - Dr-Jekyll-Mr-Hyde thing going on?

"Several committee members expressed concern that a blogger who joined our staff might air departmental dirty laundry (real or imagined) on the cyber clothesline."

Tribble takes a very sceptical view of blogging. Indeed, he stops just short of saying that blogging can totally ruin your chances of securing a tenured position. Although, he does chose good - and funny - examples of people who's blogs show they are unsuitable for the position; here is the warning: think before you blog!

• Tribble, Ivan. "First Person: They Shoot Messengers, Don't They?" The Chronicle of Higher Education (September 2, 2005): http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2005/09/2005090201c.htm (accessed July 10, 2008).

"The issue is not the medium itself, but how it is used."

After the backlash from "Bloggers Need Not Apply" Tribble felt he needed to further clarify his thoughts on blogging and conceded that it was more the current use of blogs he was decrying. Although this article was more paying lip-service to The Chronicle's readership.

• Farrell, Henry. "The Blogosphere as a Carnival of Ideas." The Chronicle of Higher Education (October 7, 2005): http://chronicle.com/free/v52/i07/07b01401.htm (accessed July 10, 2008).

"Is it a good idea to blog if you're on the job market or have a nontenured position?"
"Blogging would eat up time that could be devoted to publishing articles or working on a book."

But blogging IS a form of publishing. Not only are you actually publishing - and there is fault here with the system which does not regard a blog as a research output - but you can also blog with a view to publishing.

"While blogging has real intellectual payoffs, it is not conventional academic writing and shouldn't be an academic's main focus if he or she wants to get tenure."

This is talking more about the system than blogs themselves. Perhaps it is time for a bit more fine-tuning...

"Their blogs allow them not only to express personal views but also to debate ideas, swap views about their disciplines, and connect to a wider public."
"Academic blogs offer the kind of intellectual excitement and engagement that attracted many scholars to the academic life in the first place."
"Academic blogs also provide a carnival of ideas, a lively and exciting interchange of argument and debate that makes many scholarly conversations seem drab and dessicated in comparison."
"Blogging sacrifices some depth of thought [...] but provides in return a freedom and flexibility that normal academic publishing can't match."

A blog doesn't have to always sacrifice depth of thought though. You can always save your post as a draft and then keep working on it as you would an article. And there is no need to keep blogs short - even though the internet can give us the attention span of gnats.

"Which is not to say that blogs and more conventional forms of publishing can't compliment each other very nicely."
"Prominent academics who start blogging do have an initial advantage; they're more likely to attract early attention than people without established reputations."
"Less-well-known academics, and nonacademics with interesting things to say, have a real opportunity to speak to a wider public and to establish a reputation over time."
"Blogospheric conversations, when they're good, have a vigor and a liveliness that most academic discussion lacks."
"An unusually high level of intelligent discussion around a topic is more usually associated with stale pro- and anti-theory polemics."
"It's far harder than it used to be for academics to become public intellectuals."
"All of those blogs weave back and forth between the specialized language of academe and the vernacular of public debate. They are creating a space for dialogue between the two, connecting them together, and succeeding, to a greater or lesser degree, in changing both."
"They represent a serious challenge to well-established patterns of behavior in the academy."

Farrell's article is the most balanced I present here. Although he clearly sees blogging as a beneficial activity for academics, he also points out the dangers of which bloggers should beware. Perhaps I read too much into the article but I see that Farrell wishes to change the current academic system by undercutting the hegemony of the scholarly article to democratise academic publication and - here's the rub - help institutions value blogs as a "proper" academic outlet.

• Goetz, Rebecca A. "First Person: Do Not Fear the Blog." The Chronicle of Higher Education (November 14, 2005): http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2005/11/2005111401c.htm (accessed July 10, 2008).

"Blogs and the blogosphere are new concepts, and the possibilities for scholarly communication are endless and exciting."

Even though written almost three years ago and there has been some uptake of blogging by academics, the change is still slow to percolate up the institutional ladder.

"I have come to believe that those online exchanges build better, more involved scholars who have a wide circle of blog-colleagues."
"Perform thought experiments and try out ideas quickly without going through the conventional publication or conference process."
"There will be many more bloggers like me who mix the personal and the professional in fun and quirky ways."
"Job seekers who blog are thoughtful, interesting people who are fascinated by the possibilities that this new medium has for enhancing their personal and professional lives."

Goetz started this blog when she was a post-graduate History student at Harvard. Now, she has an academic position in Texas and is continuing to blog. This article was a conscious rebuttal to "Bloggers Need Not Apply" and consolidates the points raised by Farrell.

• Delong, J. Bradford. "Can Blogging Derail Your Career?: The Invisible College." The Chronicle of Higher Education (July 28, 2006): http://chronicle.com/free/v52/i47/47b00801.htm (accessed July 10, 2008).

"I would like a larger college."
"My invisible college is paradise squared, for an academic at least."
"Web logging is a lottery ticket to something int he future, unknown but good."
"Academics who blog think more profound thoughts, have a influence on the world - both the academic and the broader worlds - and are happier for it."

This depends on your definition of academic. Do academics not have the duty to the public good - since they, in New Zealand at least, are funded by public money - to promote increased knowledge?

"A thoughtful, intelligent, well-informed Web logger like Juan Cole or Dan Drezner is an important part of a university's public face."

This article is one of a further series of rebuttals to both of Tribble's articles and has become one of the foundation texts for academic blogging. Delong sees the blogsphere as a way for academics to widen their network of associations; a particularly useful tool for those departments which have a smaller staff and, therefore, for academics who may not have any colleagues interested in their particular area of research on hand.

• Drezner, Daniel W. "Can Blogging Derail Your Career?: The Trouble with Blogs." The Chronicle of Higher Education (July 28, 2006): http://chronicle.com/free/v52/i47/47b00701.htm (accessed July 10, 2008).

"Any substandard publication creates a black mark that is difficult to erase."
"Blogs are an outlet for unexpurgated, unreviewed, and occasionally unprofessional musings."
"Today's senior faculty members look at blogs the way a previous generation of academics looked at television - as a guilty, tawdry pleasure that should not be talked about in respectable circles."
"Any usurpation of scholarly authority is bound to upset those who benefit the most from the status quo."
"Quality blogs allow scholars to link grand theory to real-world events, cultivate new ideas, and spark public debates."

Again, Drezner focuses on how blogs can upset the status quo of academic publishing. It is for this reason that he feels the academy views blogs as somehow inferior rather than an innate sub-standard quality.

To Teach or To Learn?

During the last session of my DIL project the co-ordinator apologised to me because she was feeling that I was not getting enough out of the project. I, however, was feeling quite to the contrary. Although it was true that I was feeling frustrated that I was not being extended I have since realised I was being extended in a different way than I expected.

I had always intended this project to be an exercise in how to effectively mobilise Web 2.0 strategies/tools. However, I ended up learning how to teach. I think I am rather fluent in using on-line tools since they are mostly pretty easy to operate - they are designed this way - and if I find a new tool it won't take me that long to figure out how to use it. Instead, I had experience in passing some of this knowledge onto people who may have had little or no experience with computers. It is great to realise you were learning when you think you weren't - you just need to shift your frame of reference.

Teaching Web 2.0

At staff meeting last week, my colleague presented on his trip to the Life Long Learning conference. One of the things he mentioned was teaching students in their own Personal Learning Environments - which, these days, are more likely to be web 2.0 based. Instead of bringing the students round to the University's way of thinking - and using their education platforms - we should be bringing our way of thinking around to the students. This, of course, does not mean that we should be pandering to students and forgetting the traditional educational processes but aim for a syncretic pedagogy.

After the session, I had coffee with a number of my colleagues where we discussed learning web 2.0 applications. From this - and my experience in the Otago Uni DIL project - we need to consider how we approach these applications/strategies. For example, often the thing which stops people from experimenting on-line is that they are afraid they will cause some damage. However, the good thing about using a University system is that there is really very little danger of doing something which will damage the system since it is so protected. Even if you are using your home system the worst you will need to do is format your hard-drive and this shouldn't be a problem since you should back up your data periodically anyway. However, is it enough to just tell those who lack confidence - particularly if they worry they will break the system - that there is very little chance of doing something wrong.

I think we should be teaching the skills that are useful for web 2.0 in general - rather than actual applications. There are some things - such as creating a profile, how to use the help function - that are almost universal across applications. Of course, you need to teach these skills within the context of an application or they will not make any sense...