Computer Writing and Research Lab | University of Texas at Austin

Blogging and the classroom

Submitted by Rodney Herring on February 6, 2007 - 9:28am

If you use blogs in your courses (as I do--for reading responses), here's something to think about:
Blog Overload.

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I did, indeed, make my

Submitted by SarahJett on March 21, 2007 - 12:10pm.

I did, indeed, make my blogging assignment a bit more creative. The class seemed to enjoy it more, and I like the results I got, although it did take a lot of class time. I worry about how much time a poetry reading class should spend on creative writing.

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Good to hear

Submitted by dsargent on April 10, 2007 - 8:10pm.

Excellent to hear things went well.

(I've not been on here for a few weeks--thus, the delay in response.)

Involved lessons like this do tend to be more time-intensive. I suppose that's a judgment call on your end. :-)

Dan Sargent

The State of Higher Education

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Creative Blogging

Submitted by dsargent on February 26, 2007 - 12:42pm.

I've found that structured responses/assignments fall flat for class blogging. Students expect blogging to be a fun, expressive and creative affair. Creative writing/scholarship seemed to work best for me.

For instance, after reading a short story on the Colorado River, we created "the biography of a thing" as I called it. They were free to chose any manmade object, and trace it's journey to where they encountered it. (Something like the journey of the bullet in the beginnig of the film, Lord of War.)

I found it did more for their understanding of the reading (which they used as a practical template for their own story) than a traditional reading response could have--while preserving the expectation of "fun" in blogging.

Regarding your problems with a "public" forum for your class blog, you can take care of it by password protecting your class blogs.

Blogger.com's new blogging platform has integrated a password option. While you can find quite extensive privacy options here.

Dan

The State of Higher Education

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Creative blogging

Submitted by SarahJett on March 7, 2007 - 2:38pm.

I like the idea of using blogging time creatively, though I wonder about time contstraints. Maybe I'm trying to pack too many poems into one class period. I'm definitely going to do something new with the blog after spring break, and I hope the results will be exciting enough to share.

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I try to use blogs in my

Submitted by SarahJett on February 21, 2007 - 2:56pm.

I try to use blogs in my class, and I find that students resent them. Last semester, I assigned open-ended responses to poems using the blog and asked students to post outside of class. They hated that, and one student's responses were so open ended as to be practically stream of consciousness. When I found out that a woman in China was reading them for entertainment, I became a little concerned and tried to make the blog more organized.

This semester, I give students time in class to post, and I give them questions to answer if they can't come up with anything. I feel like this is so structured that it just wastes everyone's time. Is there a better way to use a blog than this? I'm thinking there must be. Does anyone know any more creative, thought-fostering ways to use a blog?

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