Still using online media for writing-to-learn--and how!

Now that a school year has passed since the Calderwood Writing to Learn Online Fellowships has passed, I'm curious about what my fellow fellows have discovered and and plan on continuing to use. In my College Writing courses at Franklin Pierce Keene, I know I'll keep using a blog as a place to post announcements and links to resources, and have one or two in-class writing sessions in which students respond to each other's work in the computer lab. I also found it quite handy when I had to do a make-up class after a snow day. The Meebo instant message feature seems to be quite valuable to my students as well. (My College Writing blog is http://biggerclassroom.blogspot.com/. I haven't updated since December, though, since I teach hybrid courses on eCollege in the spring semester.) At my Keene State classes where there are more functional computer labs on campus and I have a bit more academic freedom, I have been experimenting with all kinds of online writing. I had students create blogs on Blogger in the fall semester, and then in spring was able to move to WordPress when KSC installed it. (My Blogger blog was Tracy's Office at http://itw101.blogspot.com/, and my WordPress blog is T Blog at http://keeneweb.org/tmendham/ . There are links to all the student blogs in the sidebars.) I've created an online social network using a service called Ning, which I recommend for discussion board work if you're feeling adventurous. Students are facile with online networks and enjoy them, and it gives you a more protected space than a blog, but a more personal and less limiting one than Blackboard. (My Ning network is Keene-Ning at http://keenening.ning.com/. There's also a community blog, not specifically related to academia, for residents of the Monadnock area. People who live up this way might be interested in it: Citizen Keene at http://citizenkeene.ning.com/ )
For my own amusement and to keep track of some scholars I admire, I've started using the microblogging tool Twitter. (You can follow me at http://twitter.com/mendhamt.) I plan Finally, I'm using del.icio.us to store bookmarks, explore the bookmarks of colleagues, and point students to resources online. (If you want to swipe my bookmarks, you're welcome: see http://del.icio.us/mendhamt. The best ones are tagged "cool": http://del.icio.us/mendhamt/cool) The Gabcast audio podcasts worked really well in my Keene State class; reactions were a bit more lukewarm in my Franklin Pierce class. You can see and listen to student audio podcasts if you look at either of my blogs. Allowing students to take out their cell phones in class and create audio recordings on Gabcast was quite popular among the students, as you can imagine. Some educators are using Twitter (which you can post to via text message from cell phones) in the classroom, and I'm considering it--perhaps having them post thesis statements so they can be viewed and critiqued/edited? As far as I can tell this would require having all the students set up Twitter accounts though. If anyone has ideas for a simpler way to gather text messages to project on a screen, let me know. There's a great new term bouncing around the higher ed blogosphere: EDUPUNK. My esteemed colleague Mike Caulfield wrote a good blog post about it at http://mikecaulfield.com/2008/05/26/edupunk/ I'm going to the TEACH! conference on emerging technologies in education in July and quite looking forward to it.
So, what about you?

Instant Message Widget

For those of you using a blog (or some other kind of frequently-visited website) in your teaching, you might find this instant message service called Meebo useful. If you sign up for a Meebo account, you can create a little window to place on your blog that students can click on to see if you're online and chat. I'm going to try adding a Meebo widget to this post, and if you see "mendhamt is online" you can talk to me.

The system isn't perfect--some have had difficulty contacting me on it, but I've had quite a few students use it so far with quick questions and been very pleased that they were able to do so (I tell them it is for quick, simple questions only).
At the Meebo page you can also log into multiple instant message accounts with various providers at once. So if I have some people I want to communicate with who use AOL Instant Messenger, and some who use Google Talk, and some Yahoo, I add those to my Meebo account and use all of them from one place and without downloading their software. (I used to use AIM a lot, but it developed a bad reputation for adware and spyware, as have many other instant message providers). There's a chatroom feature as well, but it didn't work in the Franklin Pierce-Keene computer lab the day I tried it.

Ron's "It's Been So Long, I Don't Remember Anything" post

Finally!! I did my WAC online thing! Actually I did my project quite some time ago, and am just getting around to writing about it. To be continued because my home desktop computer is going so slow, I can't stand it. Wednesday, October 24, 2007: First, here is a testament to the usefulness of first writing a "thought letter" on an assigned short story, then responding to other students posted essays on WebCT. For this purpose, I had assigned students to do an active reading and two page TL on Donna Tartt's "The Ambush," from 2007 Best American Short Stories. This is one of the most positive posts, but there really weren't any negatives. Message no. 62Posted by Jared Lowell (lowellj) on Tuesday, September 25, 2007 3:43pmSubject: Jared Lowell's Reflection Doing this assignment was an easy task for the most part. The only trouble I had was putting some of my thoughts together to write the essay. The essay was a good piece of literature to read and write about. Posting my essay online for all my to read and comment on was a great experience. Once reading their responses to my essay gave me ideas of how I could improve my writing skills. I also enjoyed reading their essays and giving feedback to help them out as well. This is going to help me build my writing skills to help me be successful throughout college and the rest of my life :) Now, here is a typical thought letter analyzing and interpreting Tartt's "The Ambush," as practice leading to my student's more formal critiques of self-selected short stories from the BASS collection.

Dan Melville
College Writing 1
Professor Drogy
19 September 2007
The Ambush
When some unfortunate even happens, there are often negative effects on people who were involved. This could range from someone missing class and not passing in their homework to a message between naval submarines being misinterpreted and starting a nuclear war that destroys the world as we know it. When people witness an unfortunate event and come into contact with the “victim” of the situation, feelings of sorrow and sympathy are often felt. When this happens, it is not uncommon for people to try to help by providing support in any way they think will be effective. This is understandable considering how much better the world would be if everyone was compassionate and sensitive to others needs, but if this gets out of hand, it could make the situation worse than it already is. This is demonstrated exceptionally well in the short story “The Ambush” by Donna Tratt when a boy that lost his father in the Vietnam War is given no parental boundaries by his mother or grandmother; this is illustrated by his bad behavior and his automatic innocence in any situation.
Tim is the poster boy for brats. He bosses his mother and grandmother around like he owns them and never does what they say. He appears angry when they talk to him as if they are speaking out of line. If he is told to do something that he doesn’t want to do he screams at the parent or simply ignores the command. This is not entirely his fault, it’s mostly his grandmothers fault because she always let him do whatever he wanted. Instead of reprimanding the young child when his conduct was poor, she gave in and let him do as he wished. He never had any boundaries; he thought because his father died, he will be given special treatment for the rest of his life. The one time his mother calmly asked him about all the noise he was making in the yard, she was shut up by his grandmother.
Another way Tartt established the negative effects of this type of extra attention was the fact that he was never guilty of anything, even if that meant someone else had to shoulder all of the blame. When Tim and Evie were sneaking around out in the yard trying to scare whoever came down the steps, they succeeded and caused Tim’s grandmother to slip and fall. She cut her arm badly and Tim bend down beside her to treat her, like he did to Evie when they replayed his father’s death and she got shot, while she went to go call 9-1-1. On her way, she was stopped by Tim’s mother who grabbed her, screamed at her, smacked her in the face, and then blamed the whole situation her, also saying “This boy was never bad a day in his life.” All of the blame that could have been put on Tim was transferred to her, along with the responsibility for his actions since the first time they met.
Tim’s mother and grandmother brought Tim up with special privileges because they felt bad for him because he lost his father. These feelings are acceptable but they way they helped him, trying to compensate for the loss of a father with a lack of rules, is not. This did not help Tim at all as he used his father’s death to his advantage to get whatever he wanted from his mother or grandmother. This gave him a false sense of reality, in which he is free to do as he pleases, which will later become a disadvantage for him as he tries to adapt to reality and find his way in the world by himself. He is going to be lost without his lifelines and will need real help.

After reading and writing a thoughtful analysis/interpretation of the Tartt story, each student chose a short story from the collection on reserve, read it actively (margin noting, highlighting, note-taking in journal) and then wrote a three page analysis/interpretation of the story. Then I had students work in small groups to write "advice-centered" reviews, based on the directions in John Bean's Engaging Ideas. Next, each student revised his or her critique and then conferenced with me. Based on our discussion, each student then did a second revision of his or her critique, and turned it in to me about two weeks ago. I am about to return the thought letters on "The Ambush" for students to do an optional revision, which will be followed by a final draft of the formal short literary analysis. I have found this project to be very challenging and intense for most, if not all, of the students in my two College Writing I classes. I believe they have been well immersed in reading and criticizing short stories, a genre that may have escaped their attention altogether. I think they have found there is great value to reading short stories, especially when they are too busy to take on full-length novels.

The next FAWP in our fall curriculum, FAWP being a formal academic writing project, is personal narrative. My intent in taking on short literary analysis first was to immerse students in excellent narrative writing strategies and techniques, in the fictional mode, which they can then apply to writing their own true life narratives. We are in the middle of that process now, as nonfiction narratives (short ones by Angelou, Tan, Dillard, and Alexie) have been read and analyzed, again through the writing of Thought Letters, and first drafts have been written and critiqued. I will soon be reading the first drafts and revisions of those essays, which are posted on WebCT. Students are now working on revisions, with editing to follow. Next week students will share their tentative, finish products, reading aloud in class, and "final drafts" willl be posted on WebCT accompanied by cover letters, and open to additional online peer response.

I use this same basic process for each new formal writing project. I particularly enjoy the early phases of immersion into a new genre and and then the collaborative analysis of what really makes a narrative a narrative, or an argument an argument Thought letter are great to use as a low to medium stakes form of intellectualizing and communicating what is being discovered. Posting on WebCT makes the writing very accessible and easy for me to check on, especially by compiling shorter discussion postings like thought letters and reader responses.

Minghua's Sep Update

Hi, everyone:

My assignment is for my Money and Banking class and it has three phases. The first phase is to ask them to make choices based on their instinct or previous knowledge 1) choose between stock and bonds as an investment option, 2) pick up three favorite stocks 3) pick up favorite bonds. The first phase of my assignment is due the second week of the semester. They posted their answers on WebCT at designed individual cubbie. I did not ask them to comment on each other's posts. Instead I read each of their post and wrote one commment for each of their posts. Fortunately there is only 9 students in this class and I had to write only 27 comments maximim (I could not do this for my ET101 class with 24 students). One student did not post his answers on time and another student only answers one of the three questions. The rest of the students all did a very good job.

By and large I think it works fine for me. For the second and third phases I will introduce more interaction by requiring them to write peer reviews: respond to two of their peers's posts.

Here is another reason I love blog: you can post the link. However I cannot with WebCt discussion board. But you can visit my class discussion board as viewstudent. It is a public user account used by a lof of instructors. The user name is viewstudent and the password is webct. After signing in you can scroll down the list of all courses and my course is Money and Banking ET223. The discussion board is named as Investment Guru Forum.

Minghua's respond to August Check in: My plans

Hi, everyone:

Sorry for coming so late. As I mentioned in my presenation back in August, I use WebCT as the platform for my online assignments. I love blog but I rely on WebCT to assign homework, release notes to the students, let them monitor their grades, etc. And my impresssion is that students might have a hard time to keep track of both WebCT and a separate blog site. Keith and I had the coverstation the other day and we agreed that it would be wonderful if there is a blog site that will also provide the other features that blackboard/webct offer. In that case I will definitely switch to blog.

Anyway, I still use WebCT discussion board to assign the Investment Learn Curve projet I proposed. Each student is assigned one cubbie and post their comments there. It is easier for me to keep track and give them credit accordingly. For the first post, I do not require them to respond to each other but I will post my comments for each of them. For the second and third post I will require them to write comments for their peers.

Bigger Classroom/Gabcast Assignment

Hi everyone:
I had my College Writing I students call in their essay topics to my Gabcast channel last week as prewriting for their first essay on "Received Ideas." I think it worked okay. It's a small sample: there are only 9 students enrolled in the class, and 8 completed the task by the due date. Later on, maybe after the students have written the first two essays, I'll do a survey and get their feedback on whether they found the phone-in useful.
I found collecting the messages and burning them to a CD to play in class pretty easy. One of my concerns had been sound quality, but only two messages were two messages sounded a little wonky, and even with those, I could understand what was being said on a second listen. With a small number of students, and it being early in the semester without a lot of papers to grade, it wasn't too difficult to transfer the phone messages from my Gabcast channel to the Bigger Classroom blog, but I can anticipate that this might not always be the case.
So the technology worked fine, and I'm still evaluating the pedagogical value.
This is a link to the post on my Bigger Classroom blog with student phone messages:
http://biggerclassroom.blogspot.com/2007/09/received-ideas-phone-messages.html
Tracy

Into The Wild Blog Update

I really don't have much to update you all on. My first assignment is not due until the beginning of October so once the students submit that I will have an update as to how it went. I explained to them the assignment on the first day of class and could tell from some of their reactions that creating a blog and using it as an online journal written as a character in a book is an assignment that is different for them, which for me is good. One update I can share with you is that I took what we learned at Calderwood and designed an academic blog. One of the things I struggle with is students taking proper notes and making sure they understand and go back and review the important aspects of class discussions/lectures. So I took what we learned at Calderwood and I started an academic blog that chronicles what went on in class, the discussion topics, things to focus on for next class, main points to study for quizzes/exams, homework assignments, etc. This blog stemmed from my own struggle to keep my semesters straight when I am teaching 4 classes or multiple sections and things can get hectic. Immediately after class I would write a paragraph to myself that summed up class and reminded me what to focus on next class. I realized that if I am struggling to keep things straight, maybe the students are too. I chose to do this in blog format because you can be more creative and more informal which seems to be more inviting to students, unlike how they perceive platforms like WebCT, Blackboard, etc. Here is the link. http://profdetjen.blogspot.com

5-minutes of change

The 5-minute introduction to counseling.


In the span of 5 minutes, let me introduce to this subject.

In America,

The estimated number of victims of child maltreatment in 1999 was 826,000.
The estimated rate of child maltreatment in 1999 was 11.8 per 1,000 children.
Approximately two additional children are reported for suspicion of child abuse and neglect for every allegation that is substantiated.
The total number of children reported for suspicion of child abuse and neglect in 1998 was 3,154,000. This is a rate of 45 per 1,000 children.

National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse. 1999. Current Trends in Child Abuse Reporting and Fatalities: The results of the 1998 Annual Fifty State Survey. Chicago, IL: National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse.

The number of children abused or neglected in 1986 was 931,000; in 1993 the number of children was 1,553,800. (This is a two point estimate that does not reflect the flattening trend since 1992. The NIS-3 number for 1993 is higher than the number reported in the Annual Fifty State Survey because it included cases not known to child protection agencies.)
Sedlak, A., & Broadhurst, D. 1996. The Executive Summary of the Third National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect (NIS-3). Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
The assignment for this unit in Child Abuse and Neglect has been structured to challenge your inner powers to empathize and interpret the feelings of a victim of abuse. These skills are necessary for all of us that are working in this field. I would like for you and your partner to travel the Internet to the following site;

http://www.geocities.com/afterthestorm1/therearesecrets.htm.

Please open this site, read and reflect on this poem. Upon completion of this step, draft a general blueprint on how your team would propose to represent to others the feelings expressed in this poem without the use of words. Upon completion of this task, the next step in this assignment is to formulate a strategy for the implementation of this proposal. Once you have formulated the strategy, your next task is to create a workable plan of action to fulfill this assignment. The final steps of this assignment are to present your portrayal and then present your team’s descriptive picture of the victim for all to review and reflect. Successful completion of this assignment will be evaluated upon how well the final product meets the standards that have been set within the text of this assignment. Good luck and enjoy.

Attempt #2

http://onlinedrawingcritiquefall07.blogspot.com/

My Blog Site

Morning, Everyone:

Since this is THE big day, and I'm #2 on the speaking list, I thought I'd send you the link to my blog site to save time and hassle. It's at:

http://onlinedrawingcritiquefall07.blogspot.com

Cheers!

Talking Drafts for Presentations

Mark: mini pearls, envisioning a second link for comments so as not to clutter the blog. If I limit them to being commentors.

Wayne: hybrid or 100% online. Creating a child abuse course and took a situation about empathy. Took an assignment and linked it to a poem (with music, etc) work in groups of two and create an interpretation of this poem without the use of words. As they go past down through that. They must represent the victim without using words for example posting an image online. Hybrid could act out the representation. Do feedback on how closely it reflects what they are looking at.

Donna: Need to look up the word and post definition and share with a few other people so they can learn about denotation and connotation and paragraph to read that’s pretty theoretical. The point is memory is evoked by senses. I want them to do this and come to a better understanding of theory. Make a list of material sensual things for example, raspberries and grandmother’s house. Must tell a story based on one of the material sensual things and post the story. Go back and do an analysis of how they understand the theory of memory and materiality—that we always already have memories that are infused by things/memories.

Ron: CWI read and analyze a short story, short literary analysis start by reading and analyze it and discuss main ideas and thesis which is inferred, what it would be. Would have already read about writing about literature. How to read actively. After done reading and taking notes write in form of a thought letter a rough draft response to the main ideas in the story. Post on Web CT and in groups they’ll read and respond. 300 words.

Charles: Group project alphabetically, 3 or 4, with a list of topics to select and select an area to write a paper due on the 12^th week. Actually email each other, one person being the leader—still working on how to meet with each group. Email conversations where instructor cc-ed and can jump and coach.

Nancy: First week CW—why college writing—be in computer lab and look up rhetoric on Wikipedia make notes, chat on Web CT look up essay chat about that too. Compile info they need to use it to write the first five lines and as an instructor look over their shoulder to coach. Next class a two page essay is due.

Rick: General excel functions in statistics, some ideas Each one would make a list of excel functions, statistical functions. Part of the basic excel package. The appendix covers some. Make everyone go out and use them, use it and explain it and have example. Write directions on how to use it and test it and have someone test it. Maybe have peer review where instructions are improved.

Kelly: Set up the actual dynamic all courses in management curriculum with spontaneous discussions take place like government and business. Not getting a lot of discussions and the topics are charged. Try it on Web CT to set up an online discussion. Case dealing with Global Warming example of inclusiveness with other businesses. Read article online, three questions have them critique this organization’s strategy for reducing global warming. Respond within three days to two other students—rubric for a quality post. Personal opinion based on article, quote from article, don’t agree look at it intelligently. All grammatically correct.

Tracy: Student Directions—challenge is many students are not online going to use gab-cast where students can phone in messages that I can then publish to a blog. Prepares them for an essay they’ll write. Identify a received idea and describe reaction to it. Directions give numbers—say name, received idea is and what they’re interested in and what their reaction and understanding is to this idea. Deadline. Articulating an idea for their essay and will have it count as a reading response journal. Figured out I can write the assignment without using the word phone message. Want students to access the podcast and hand things in before the next class and getting students to talk about it orally and tapping into the comfort people have with talking. Prompts: American’s today believe that . . . etc.

Scott: Drawing 2 Critique Blog—an important part of the art field is critique and difficult if you don’t like to talk. Students often do not participate. Why not give them a chance to do a critique online in a BLOG where they’re authors. Bring work and I’d take digital pictures and get print outs and posted on BLOG. Take it home and have a weekend to submit their comments. Assess on pass fail one comment on each person’s work—can respond to other comments too. There should be at least one response per student to each piece.

Pat: Directs students to blog for class as authors which will be populated right before the class begins. Directions copy Wini’s directions. First assignment, purpose to work out bugs in tech. Share with other students three questions or concerns about the class—assignments, teacher, student outcomes, etc, before the first class meeting. Read posts prior to first class meeting and use them to direct first class. Second might be a response to two students at least one of whom doesn’t already have a response based on what we discussed in class today. Do they understand course requirements? Identify questions still don’t have questions for. With two sections, maybe one BLOG one not, logistics and ethics.

Keith: Sports Business couple a novel with textbook so we can get application of the textbook. Last year used Into the Wild and it went very well with the discussion on Leisure management. Create their own blog as an online journal and write it as the main character of the novel. Four posts will be directed by instructor tying in theories. Last two they will write as themselves discussing their own views of leisure and contrast to character in novel and one to a movie. Looking at blogs six times during the class. More involved in outside reading.

Ming: Learning Curve Project—money and banking class main purpose is for the student to basics of securities, stocks and bonds. First day I ask them to pick to stocks and two banks and give me some reasons intuitively why they chose those. Second part after introducing theory, how would they revise their decisions after learning concepts. During the second period I ask them to track the stock. On Web CT to post some graphs tracking the stock. Last period after already learned basics and own experience in market give one more time to revise their decision. I can generate a threaded discussion for each of the three periods and easier for me to follow if I design one thread for each person. Won’t be punished for losing money, will get extra credit for making money!

Tracy need guinea pigs for after lunch to phone into gab cast and try it.

Donna needs guinea pigs too.

After Lunch

Post 2 rationales and every rationale should have two comments.

Keene - Pick an Excel Function

Each student will pick one of the following (to get to functions, hit insert, functions, and choose statistical) functions (in the case that there are several functions listed together, if you pick that line, you must do all the functions on that line):

Mean, Median, Mode
Stdev, Avedev
Var, Varsq
Percentile, quartile
Poisson
Normsdist, Normdist
ZTest
Binomdist
Skew
Forecast
Expondist

By _______ each student will blog their choice. Note that only one student will be allowed to choose a topic. In the case that two students pick the same topic, the earliest post will dictate who will do the topic.
Your assignment:
1. As the Leader, for the topic you choose, explain the topic, and how to use, such that each student can use it. Show an example (you can use actual data or create your own fictitious data set), using the link icon. Be sure to explain why someone would want the statistic you've developed. *** This must be posted by _______ *** If you use excel 2007, you must save the file as excel 2003.
2. each student must respond to 3 (no more and no less) other posts by showing an example (use the link icon) of their choice (use actual data set or create your own). Again, save the file as excel 2003 or earlier version. This is due no later than _______
3. the leader will check the postings of all who post to their topic, responding with agreement or disagreement.
4. If you have questions on how to use a tool, post a comment to the leader.

NOTE: all posting must be completed by _______

Why College Writing?

This exercise will allow me to serve several purposes.

1. When the students answer the question themselves they will understand the rationale for the course in a concrete way.

2. As I watch them work I can pick up strengths and weaknesses quickly.

3. As I work with them they will understand who I am and how I work quickly.

4. By reading the 5 sentences I can pick up writing problems immediately and alert all of them to common problems.

5. By working together, they will get over some of their own computer phobia - which kicks in in the early days of the semester. They can teach themselves shortcuts and how to solve problems just as I have been taught today.

6. They will have to cope with WebCT without whining all semester about how they can't find it and therefore it becomes usleless to me.

7. This will be a very lively way to start the semester and get everyone to work together.

Wiki Notes

Here are some quick and dirty notes I took on the Wiki mini-lecture
Wiki
A webpage that anyone can edit
ie wikipedia
Different frameworks
Can install your own, or go to ones hosted elsewhere
Can limit the authors, or make it open to all

MediaWiki
Has its own syntax
[[Media Wiki]] will create a link

Zoho.com
Alternative to Microsoft office

Zoho Wiki
Free Wiki- Hosted
MediaWiki (camel case- no spaces) will create a link
Can create your own Wiki
Only text- no uplink

Jotspot
Free Wiki with Google
Hosted

LibraryWiki- at FPU- only to library staff
A large procedure manual

RSS reader (really simple syndication)
www.bloglines.com
Google has one

Watch page- links to me

Minghua’s Pedagogical and Economic Rationale

1.Expectation: Students are expected to write understandable economic analysis. They need to convey their ideas well to professionals as well as lay men in writing.
2. Learning by doing: Learning is a process and “Write to learn” is a good approach to make the students more active in this process. As Confucius said: I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand. In economics, it is very important for students to go beyond lecture and do something on their own. Writing can aid this process. When they write they have to understand the concepts first and then put those concepts and theories into their own words. In particular this project gives them hands-on experience of securities and financial markets.
3. Scarcity: a society have limited resourced with respect to our unlimited wants. Writing in paper will consume paper and ink while writing online involves no additional costs as long as a computer is ready (marginal cost is zero).
4. Technology: “ a class without an online component would do them no favor” (Hawisher, Moran 1997). Asking the students to write online helps them stay current with the technology.
5 Atmosphere: I envision the atmosphere in cyberspace is more relaxed. For students who are not feeling comfortable speaking up in class, this gives them equal opportunity to get their voice heard.

Why Do I need to learn excel functions ? ? ?

Excel is a basic program that all business leaders should be able to use. Students find the functions themselves intimidating. Last term, I had a group of graduate students who added two numbers in different, nonadjacent cells, use the sum function just to add the two cells. It truly amazes me how many (graduate) students strictly type answers into excel, not even using the simple calculations. The instructions in functions are sometimes confusing. This assignment will require each student to become “an expert” at one function (from a given list of statistical functions) and require them to teach the rest of the class through a blog, including an example. Each other student will be required to use an example to show they understand 3 functions done by other students. The person who originally posted will be required to field questions.

Tracy's Rationale for "Phoning in Your Topic" Assignment

I have two main reasons for asking students to phone in their essay topics.
1. Capitalizing on their oral/auditory skills before they start writing. Many people can articulate things more comfortably in the spoken word before they're ready to commit them to paper.
2. Time factor. Our 8-week GPS terms fly by. They can do this from home on Saturday, and those that have internet access on Sunday can listen to the audio recordings after I post them to the blog on Sunday.

Rationale for an Online Drawing II Critique

I believe I covered much of the rationale for the assignment on my initial blog posting, but to reiterate (perhaps with more clarity?):

My experience in teaching in the studio art field is that students, particularly Freshmen, dislike discussing and defending their art work in class. Much of that dislike is no doubt due to being at a new school, taking new classes and talking in front of people they don't know well. Artwork to a student is a very personal thing and to put it out in the public domain for the purpose of criticism by others, whether positive or negative, is a scary thing.

By putting them out of eyesight/earshot of each other in a place where they can contemplate the imagery before them without other interference, they should (in theory, anyway)be more open to being themselves and communicating more of what they actually feel, believe, and understand(or don't understand)about the piece of art they're examining. In addition, the dialogue generated on the blogsite, by myself as well as the students, is very likely to ellicit a response, whereas in class there may be many comments that students won't respond to orally unless prompted to by me. After the assignment has been completed, we would then have an in-class discussion regarding the comments made on the Critique blogsite.

The goal of the exercise is to increase student dialogue regarding artwork, by having them "break the ice" via online comments and then using the printout of the blog posts as a follow up or to generate conversation in a later class.

rationale for BA 417-01 blog

The course expectations assignment I have designed is a good fit with blogging because the technology provides a timely public discourse for students to share questions and concerns they have about the course prior to our first meeting. I am hoping it results in students arriving in class more ready to learn. It will inform the teaching of my first class by providing me with a baseline of my students' writing and thinking as well as a glimpse into what is of import to this particular class of students.