Tips and Tricks

If you take nothing else from my presentation today, please take with you these thoughts I've gathered on blogging. I had just begun blogging with my students five years ago when I took a position with eMINTS.

The power of seeing one's own words published in digital ink is something to which we should take notice. Since those early experiments with the tool, I've published hundreds, maybe even thousands of posts on various different sites. During that time, I've come to realize a few things about blogging...

It's all about the content. All the fancy gadgets and embedded media in the world won't make up for a lack of high-quality content. Great blogs feature great ideas. Conversely, low-level blog posts and discussions produce low-level engagement.

Blogs need focus. Don't make your blog be a catch-all for just any kind of writing or discussion you want to happen online. Give your blog a focus. This makes it coherent as one post connects to the last. It also makes the work students do with blogs more meaningful to them if they know what to expect.

Quantity vs. Quality: There is often a give and take with blogs. If one posts daily or multiple times a day, posts tend to be short and somewhat superficial. Still, posting every day can help a blog maintain relevancy. Of course, high-quality blog posts take longer to post and don't happen as often. You need to decide what kind of blog you want. Do you want a regular flow of ideas to carry your blog or do you want the occasional thought-provoking post that really gets readers talking? It's not impossible to have both, but you may have to quit your day job.

Consider your organization criteria (tabs, categories, pages) from the beginning. These features help us organize content so that it can be easily retrieved. Stick with simple yet diverse organizational techniques. You may want to be vague in some instances and specific in others. Honestly, it's best to be a little bit of both.

Writing improves with practice. The reason most people don't blog is because writing or coming up with ideas for writing is hard. This can only get better with practice. It might be a struggle at first, but writing comes easier the more often one does it. It might be a good idea to keep a blog that is non-school-related on the side so that you keep your skills fresh. The more we write/blog, the easier it gets.

Still, the most important piece of information I can offer  is to LET YOUR STUDENTS BLOG!

Krissy Venosdale wrote a  blog post of her own about this shift in thinking. Krissy felt as though her students had a blog, but what they really had was her blog and some permission to post now and again or to just comment. I don't know that every student or class needs individual blogs. Some great collaborative work can happen when we share blogs. However, we should be doing all we can to insure that students are fully participating in blogging. Blogging is writing and writing is thinking. Who doesn't want their students thinking?

Of course, to do this, we must consider a few of the issues we've discussed so far in the form of the software available.

• Management - As with any classroom activity, we must carefully consider our management strategies.
  • Privacy vs. Public - How public do you want to make a blog? You can set privacy settings so that only those with permission or a password can see your blog. However, this limits the opportunity for sharing and interacting with the world beyond our own communities.
  • Permissions - Most services offer options for users. How much permission will you provide your students? Will they be able to post without your approval? Will they be able to upload media? Will comments have to pass through your inbox before publishing? If students are given their own blogs, this may all be out of your control.
  • Individual vs. Whole Class - There are advantages to both. Individual blogs allow students their own working environment while class blogs provide a tighter-knit community and more opportunity for collaboration. There is no right answer, but you have to decide what works best for you.
• Email Work-Arounds - Nearly every blogging site requires email addresses for blogging accounts. Most students do not have email, but there are ways to work around this.
  • Gmail - There used to be a trick for creating multiple users on one Gmail account, but Google finally caught on and did away with that option. Now, I suggest setting up Gmail accounts for students. Either this can be done through a district's tech department or by teachers. However, I strongly caution teachers to set up the accounts so that all changes and emails are forwarded to them or a dummy account. Adding email norms to your CUP's wouldn't hurt either.
  • Temporary emails - Another popular option for schools afraid of giving students email addresses is to use a temporary email service such as Guerrilla Mail, Mailinator, or 10 Minute Mail.