On 3/16/07, Jill Walker <jill.walker@uib.no> wrote:
I also make my students blog in public - although like Doug, I've come to the conclusion that blogging doesn't work well with unmotivated students.
Motivation in the classroom is complicated, but one of the reasons I regularly have students blog, and blog in public, is precisely because it provides for intrinsic forms of motivation to learn. I guess I've been lucky, and have always had pretty overwhelmingly positive responses to blogging. For it to work, I think students need to understand that it is important to you (and to their grade). This at least provides the initial impetus to put time into understanding what blogging is and how it works. For many of my classes, the vast majority of the grade in the class is based on individual blogs. But once that initial introduction is complete, I find that students are motivated to write when they believe that more than just their instructor or TA will be reading what they are writing. Much of that motivation comes of having their peers be able to read what they are thinking, but many are also encouraged by the idea that they might have a wider audience. In many cases, I make gathering such an audience an explicit part of the evaluation: if you can demonstrate engaging in a cross-blog conversation with others in the class or outside of the class, I think this represents the best sort of learning through blogs. Kevin Lim and Derek Lackaff have taken this a step further this semester, offering "awards" for the student blogs that get the greatest exposure (cf http://com125.wordpress.com/awards/). - Alex -- // // This email is // [X] assumed public and may be blogged / forwarded. // [ ] assumed to be private, please ask before redistributing. // // Alexander C. Halavais // Social Architect // http://alex.halavais.net //