February 2007 — News
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Moderating and Ethics for the Classroom Instructional Blog
2/26/2007—If I still taught in K-12, would I use a blog? It's one of those new technology tools that some of us digital immigrants might struggle to appreciate. Knowing what I do now, I probably would at least try one because blogs can support the collaborative element so important for peer to peer learning. While some blogs serve personal agendas, in education they can be used for student journals and portfolios, communication with parents and community members, faculty coaching, classroom management (e.g., posting assignments), and other knowledge management tools (Long, 2002) and enhancing classroom discussion.
But then I start thinking of the work involved to have a good one.
I'm not one to do something just because it's in fashion. As I have taught several online courses in higher education, it occurs to me that there is a relationship between conducting online discussions using a course management system, such as WebCT, and conducting blogs in the K-12 classroom, including some ethical considerations that students must be taught. If I had a blog, it would have a purpose tied to some instructional outcome. To know if that outcome has been achieved, I would have to find a way to set up and moderate the blog without exhausting myself. But how? What are the rules of engagement?
To begin with, every unit of instruction should include standards, goals, and essential questions with corresponding understandings, knowledge, and skills that you desire students to acquire. If I had a blog, I would set up discussion focused on just one or two essential questions at a time, and I would limit the time of each discussion, perhaps to the length of the instructional unit or a week. I would identify the frequency and due days for student posts and expectations for their responses to others. I would model a reply to illustrate the quality I expect. I would make my own presence known and encourage students to initiate questions on course-related topics. They might find this one of the most beneficial and rewarding aspects of discussion.
If I had a classroom blog, everyone would be required to participate and respond to others. There is value in this. Stuart Glogoff (2005) found that without that requirement, a blog can easily be abandoned and die. Consider what typically happens when a teacher poses a question in a traditional classroom, hopefully of an open-ended nature. There are always the few who dominate discussion. Too often students state opinions without solid support from content they are studying. Sometimes they drown out others. There are always disengaged students who pray you don't call on them and others who might have something truly relevant to say, but are too shy to do so. The discussion is often teacher-student centered, rather than also including student-student dialog. As in the asynchronous environment offered within a course management system, the blog is a vehicle to ensure that everyone is heard and is a valued member of the learning community.
