Slides from SCOLT 2012 in Atlanta

1. Why They (Won’t) Blog
Dr. Marcel Rotter – University of Mary Washington
(mrotter@umw.edu – PP on Slideshare)

2. Background UMW
 University of Mary Washington in
Fredericksburg, VA
 4000 undergraduate Students,
800 graduate students
 Largest majors in Biology, Psychology, Business, English
 Department of Modern Foreign Languages:
- Spanish, French, German (=majors)
- Italian, Arabic, Chinese (= language programs)
- Language Requirement (intermediate proficiency or
2 years of college-level instruction)

3. Technology at UMW
 Own blogging platform ****.umwblogs.edu
 Wordpress based
 Support of IT by administration
 Support of IT for faculty and staff
 Jim Groom (Edu Punk) = director of IT
 Faculty Academy each spring
 Training sessions for groups and in offices
 Blogging – very common in classes

4. Blogging in Advanced German Classes
 Part of the syllabus
 “technical session” with IT support staff
 Assignment of topics usually through
teacher’s or class blog
 Students have to blog 1-2 paragraphs &
comment on at least two other blogs
 Teacher comments on students’ blogs
 Grade assigned to force participation

5. Problems
 Students unwilling to blog in the FL in German and
some Spanish classes (teacher interviews, student
survey)
 Students overwhelmed by blogging in classes
 Would students blog in FL without a grade?
 How to make the assignment of the grade
transparent?
 Make it part of a comment on the blog site? (FERPA=)
 Email explanation? (effective? Time consuming)
 Correction by students?
 Privacy issues

6. Elements in the blogging process
1. Technology
2. Teacher
3. Students
4. Content
6. [Administration]
7. [Parents]

7. 1. Technology
 impact of other technology on teaching
Thomas Edison in 1922:
 “I believe that the motion picture is destined to
revolutionize our educational system, and that in a
few years it will supplant largely, if not entirely, the
use of textbooks. The education of the future will
be conducted through the medium of the motion
picture, a visualized education, where it should be
possible to obtain one hundred percent efficiency”.

8. 1. Technology
 Seymor Papert 1984:
 “There won’t be schools in the future.
The computer will blow up the school”.
 similar claims about the radio, TV, ‘teaching
machines’ (learning laboratories)

9. 1. Technology
 Larry Cuban: history of these visions of technological utopia, how the same
kinds of educational claims recurred with each medium, and how in each
case those claims were largely refuted by subsequent developments
 large majority of teachers ignored these apparently revolutionary devises
 after extensive investments and a period of initial fascination technology
left to gather dust. [2]
 Government: largely uncritical acceptance of nebulous rhetorics of the
“information society”
 Example:claim that majority of employers now require workers with high
levels of technological skills
 but even within the technology industries, they are more interested in
much broader personal and social qualities. (Cup stacking?)
 Sales pitch of Computer shops to parents and college students: Computers
will enable you to ‘get ahead’ in the educational race.
 Technology advertising preys upon adults’ anxieties about their own
incompetence and their fear of failing to ‘catch up’ with the younger
generation

Larry Cuban Teachers and Machines (New York Teachers College Press, 1986), and see also Carolyn Marvin When Old Technologies Were New (Oxford:
[2]
Oxford University Press, 1988)

10. 1. Technology 2. Teacher
 How should schools respond to the role of
digital media in students’ lives?
 Teacher training in new technology
 Changing authority in knowledge acquisition

11. 3. Students
 young people’s media increasingly inaccessible to the
majority of adults (by design?)
 banality of much new media use

12. 3. Students
 Young people permeated/defined by modern
media  contemporary consumer culture.
 democratization of relationships
 students’ experiences with electronic media
 Outside of school: the self-determined user/consumer
 Inside of school: the “guided” student
 New media mostly interactive (“Pull-media”)
 Older media, such as TV (“Push-media”)
 both kinds inter-connected
 boundaries between mass communication and
interpersonal communication breaking down

13. 3. Students
 Are our students really so media-savvy as
we think?
 Digital media = indispensable aspect of
young people’s leisure time experiences.
 Does exposure to media means mastering
them?

14. Surveys among students
2. 2008: 50 FL students, 20 English
majors
4. 2012: 75 students from FL and
other departments

16. Bloggers / Non-Bloggers

17. Length of exposure

18. Blog-Site ownership

19. Current Use

20. Motivation of Blogging
IIhad to blog class. I like howthan that I
did it for for classes, other it saves
don't do it. Blogs don't interest me
everything automatically often and
I because they are too internet-intensive
like using it for classes, it’s a good
and not very personal. They rely too
way to get everyone’s information
much on internet persona and not a real
in theperson. place.
same

21. Feature Preferences I
The best part of blogging is the comments. I
don't always use them and they aren't
always welcome, but usually they are a
great tool. … Commenting, even when
teachers force it, is a way to move all
people into thinking for themselves,
constructively, and forming their OWN
thoughts on the matter. From a writers
standpoint, comments are excellent
feedback.

22. Feature Preferences II
…and its very exposing to
put your innermost thoughts
on the net. Some people can't
take that kind of pressure but
use a blog anyway and then
can't take the pressure when
poor comments are made.

23. Blogging in a FL

24. Yes, in French
FL Distribution
(beginner/intermediate), Spanish
(intermediate), and German
(beginner). I comment in other
languages often. I have a lot of
friends on LiveJournal from other
countries.

25. Motivation for Blogging in FL
Blogging in a I have blogged in Spanish for my classes. They were
foreign language not effective because no one was interested in doing
kinda allows one to them. The idea was for us to share our ideas with
each other and respond, but since it was forced,
make the language
people only did it (when they did it) because they
one's own. had to and it did not generate deeper thought.

26. Obstacles to Blogging in FL
I maintained a blog in Spanish for my literature course. The only thing
that would motivate me to blog (not just in a foreign language) would be
grading. … Let's leave the blogs to the middle school students
complaining about how awful their lives are.

27. Motivation for Blogging in FL
Possibly. If I ever
become truly fluent in
a foreign language then
yes, it is a good way for classesbut I cannot
I will,
to communicate and farther in another
think
practice their use of the language. and certainly
language
It is especially nice for students much work
it's too
who are not strong speakers. very little hope of
with
payoff.

28. Obstacles to Blogging
I find myself unable toThey're a waste blogging
Reasons for notattend school,
maintain a blog, of time.
and do everything I'd often include: I've also found
like to get done. Facebook is
…
sites like Fictionpress.com to be better suited to
not an ideal medium for
displaying fiction to a more critical audience. I have
no desire to use a blogIas a common journal. I door
blogging feel one really
do not No any need
however read the blogs of myto hear and find have
wants to blogwhat I them
desire friends
insightful. to talk about

29. Motivation to Blog
If I find I have this burning
desire to reach the world
(perhapsas part of project to
perhaps if I become a
perhaps, for teaching
hermit) interest in my
generatethen I will no doubt
purposes.
blog in an organization,
non-profit effort to reach
the outside world.Honduras
Students Helping

30. Electronic Media Use

31. Creators vs. Consumers

32. Creating Media

33. Elements of success in blogging (?)
 Students
 Must be fluent enough to express opinions
 Must be motivated to share opinions
 Must have a sense of identity
 Must be able to use technology
 Teacher
 Must plan blog as integrate part of course
 Must provide motivation and stimulation
 Must master technology (or must have help)

34. Elements of success in blogging (?)
 Content
 Must be relevant to students
 Can be multi-medial
 Technology
 Must be easy to deal with
 Must be attractive to students

35. Elements of success in blogging (?)
 virtual places of learning are no substitute
for face-to-face learning, just an extension
and broadening
 Online and Offline content must be
connected since it is the same subject

36. Elements of success in blogging (?)
 Network structures in cyberspace  change
in roles of students:
 Teachers: “owners of knowledge” 
participants in creation of knowledge
 roles are constantly changing: author 
reader  producer  interpreter…
 But what if students refuse to participate in
this process??

37. UMW Blogs
Blogs:
 http://german393.umwblogs.org/
 www.mrotter.umwblogs.org
Jeremy Larochelle (colleague in Spanish)
 freshman seminar: http://jlarochellefsem.umwblogs.org
 Lit. courses: http://jlarochelle317.umwblogs.org.
Slideshare:
 www.slideshare.com, search for user “mapauro”

38. Blogging until the end…