Making Blogs Work - Journal Entry 9

I recently read an article entitled "Avoiding the Five Most Common Mistakes in Using Blogs with Students" by Ruth Reynard. It appeared in the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) on-line publication, T-H-E Journal, on October 15th, 2008. You can find it here: http://www.thejournal.com/articles/23434_1
The author cautions about five dangers in blogging pedagogies: ineffective contextualization, unclear learning outcomes, misuses of the environment, illusive grading practices, and inadequate time allocation. In Reynard's article, mistakes 1 and 3 would have been better grouped together because they are so closely related. She cautions that the first 'caution', Ineffective Contextualization arises because students and teachers fail to decouple the social networking aspect of blogging from the self-reflection and thought processing benefits of the blog. Though these blogs provide areas for reader commentary, students and teachers alike should not lose sight of the fact that these are monologues, not dialogues. These blogs should function more like individual journals, not wikis or discussion boards. This last point is really emphasized in the third 'caution', Misuse of the Environment.

Likewise, Reynard's second and fourth 'cautions', Unclear Learning Outcomes and Illusive Grading Practices respectively are really two parts of the same claim. What I take away from these points are that there needs to be a rubric provided right at the onstart of the project; and there needs to be clearly articulated task components such as reflection statements, uploaded artifacts, and other benchmarks. This allows for a mappable arc of development of growth from analysis to synthesis to application.

I will ask and answer two things of this article:
1. Why does there need to exist these unnecessary demarcations between blogs, wikis, and discussion boards? Does the blog have the potential to be 'abused' as merely a social networking 'toy'? Yes, but it needn't necessarily be so. Use that dynamic adolescent networking energy to the benefit of the students by creating group blogs and blog rings where there is some cross-pollination. This can result in a hybrid creature that is neither blog not wiki but something that draws on both.
2. How can this be accomplished? The best proof would be to pay a visit to one such project I did with some composition students using Julia Alavarez's quasi-historical novel In The Time of the Butterflies. That can be seen here: http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=177222837

PSA iMovie Reflection

1.
I recall that our group worked well together, primarily at the onset of the project when we were dividing up the tasks. Our strength as a group came from our diverse talents. I was able to call on my contacts with the Cal State Poetry community and contacts at Clarke Field House to interview some of the poets such as Ant Black that were throwing down that night. With my camcorder I got some good interview and raw footage to throw into the hopper.
The weakness of our group might have been that lack of consensus as we were wrapping up the editing process. There were some strong personalities that ran roughshod over some of the other members contributions. Certain visions were ignored and our main editor appeared immune to input from others. Also some team members seemed to have a frustration level that was easily engaged.

2.
I consider myself a key contributor to the project, particularly at the beginning. I was able to articulate a good idea during the brainstorming and storyboarding exercises. I also capitalized on the ongoing poetry event and captured a lot of good footage along with a clever interview script. I also selected the music we used….but hey….How can you go wrong with Greyboy All-Stars?!

3.
This project was a real eye-opener for me. My awareness of the achievement gap came about primarily from the terrific statistics and anecdotes provided by the two team members tasked with the research. Of course the Ant Black interview had a lot to do with it as well.

4.
I can definitely see myself using iMovie in the class but would need to put a few controls in place. I don’t mean control that would stifle creativity and spontaneity. What I mean is more in the way of ‘spatulating’ the talent so that there are balance talent loads. O point in having all the ‘techies’ on the same team. By making sure each team has a good mix of talents, working styles, (and yes flakiness) the best videos can then be produced.

5. I had such a blast with this project. It was so much easier to quickly get up to speed than using Final-Cut Pro, which has a longer learning curve

JournaL 6b - iNspiration

Would I use Inspiration as a tool in the classroom? Yes, but there is good along with bad. Not only do I see tremendous benefit for those whose learning style is largely visual, but also for those who learn best with information presented and processed in a methodological, grid-like format. In other words there is enough flexibility in Inspiration to accommodate both ends of the spectrum simulaneously. I can see this tool used effectively for brainstorming activity whether the task is related to storyboarding, social studies or simply laying out steps for a larger project.

Are there any limitations or caveats to using Inspiration in the classroom? Yes there are. The risk would largely fall on those students who might be too focused on details. Such students can easily spend too much time on layout particulars such as shape of bubbles, font selection, spatial configuration. Nothing wrong with that level of conscientiousness provided that it is coupled with effective time-management and deference to other project team members who may wish to focus more on content than format. Just saying...