Even Richtel’s piece points out the false . . . → Read More: Blogs in class]]> In yesterday’s NYTimes, Matt Richtel has an article entitled “Blogs vs Term Papers,” in which he sketches a debate about college writing. Cathy Davidson responds brilliantly, talking at length about her own experience with teaching methods that stray from the traditional academic writing still taught in many places.

Even Richtel’s piece points out the false binary in blogs vs term papers (why not both?), but another false binary, introduced in a quote, goes largely unexamined:

“She’s right,” [William H.] Fitzhugh says of Professor Davidson. “Writing is being murdered. But the solution isn’t blogs, the solution is more reading. We don’t pay taxes so kids can talk about themselves and their home lives.”

So, it’s blogs vs term papers, or blogs vs. reading, as if requiring blogs precludes assigning reading. And reading what, by the way? Articles? Blog entries? Novels? Academic essays? Comic books?  And the prejudice remains that blogs are always short, sloppy, personal, ill-researched, and term papers aren’t.

I am having my students keep blogs this semester for the first time in many years. The blog entries I will require them to write take the place of short response papers they used to hand in to me. My rationale is that, if they feel they are writing for a public audience they will write differently, and be responsive to that audience in a different way. Their classmates will certainly read their work, and the general public also has access to these blogs. And guess what? They’re also writing more traditional papers.

I don’t believe that anyone thinks assigning blogs is avant-garde at this point, and I think the only way anyone could strongly oppose them is to come up with headlines like “Blogs vs Term Papers” and fall into stereotypes about what blogs do, as if the only function of a blog is to act as a 14-year old’s diary.

What I have found so far is that most of my students have never heard of, let alone kept, blogs. With a few exceptions, the few that have them use them for their English classes.

My hope is that they will treat them as a space for their own writing, for experimenting with prose and trying out opinions, and for seeing their own writing as  potentially valuable to others. I also hope it will teach them to be accountable in their writing and consider an audience beyond their stodgy professor. Finally, I hope they will take ownership of their new blogs and keep them after the class is over.

In assigning them blogs, I recommended WordPress but told them they can use whatever they like, including Blogger, Tumblr, Posterous or whatever. I also gave them the following advice about anonymity:

Everything you post on your blog is public. You may use your real name on your blog, but you do not have to. You might prefer to use your first name and last initial, or a complete pseudonym. So long as I and your classmates know it’s you, you can use whatever name you like. Think hard about this, but know that with most blogs, you can change your display name whenever you want, so your decision is reversible.

(The anonymity bit is prompted in part by the strange experience my class had last time we did blogs.)

I know I have created for myself a total mess in allowing different platforms and levels of anonymity, but I have learned from experience that students have different levels of awareness about online identity, and I want them to make informed decisions since these are, after all, their blogs, not mine.

I am going to put together a list of all the blogs from the class, but I am not sure I will publish it publicly, because, frankly, I don’t know what the FERPA implications are. If you have any insight on this, let me know.

I realize that this blog post has become quite rambling and fragmented, but isn’t that part of the point? I wouldn’t submit this to a journal, nor would I consider this scholarship in any traditional sense. But neither is it a pointless diary entry about what I ate this morning (if you’re interested, I will tell you). And writing this blog entry doesn’t mean that I cannot or will not write more sustained and organized argumentation around this topic. I simply haven’t chosen to at this point, in this venue, and I think that’s ok. If that’s all my students learn in their blog entry assignments,  I will be satisfied. After all, they still have to write a longer essay for me.

What they (can) expect. When I started teaching at the college level, email was still somewhat new, and many people had mobile phones, but texting was not an . . . → Read More: Expectations of Technology Access in Education]]> What can we expect from students and what can they expect from us?  This is a broad question that I would like to narrow down to technology.

What they (can) expect. When I started teaching at the college level, email was still somewhat new, and many people had mobile phones, but texting was not an option.  Computers were not as ubiquitous as they now seem to be.  If a student wanted to talk to me, she did so after class, or during my office hours.  Occasionally I would get a phone call during office hours, or a message to call someone back.  In the main, out-of-class inquiries were sequestered to these times and places.  Also, all assignments were turned in on paper. As email caught on and students started using it, I found that their expectations for me began to change.  They wanted sometimes unrealistically prompt responses, and expected me to available 24/7.  I began to implement  a system where I designated specific times when I promised I would check and respond to email — say, Friday morning and Tuesday afternoon.  They may get a quicker response, I would tell them, but they could expect one no later than those times.  Now, I try to respond as quickly as possible, and this semester I gave them a personal phone number — my Google Voice number — where they can call or text me with questions.  So far, it has worked out pretty well.

What we (might) expect. As email evolved and Blackboard spread across campuses, opportunities for out-of-class communication expanded.  Personally, I like using Moodle or BB, blogs, social networking tools and other asynchronous technology to enhance teaching, but lately I am plagued with question of access.  I have had the opportunity to teach at many schools, either university, art college or community college, and have found that expectations for students’ access to the web varies widely.  At some places, they live and breathe Blackboard.  At others, some do not know how to check their email.  A lot of this seems to be tied to socioeconomic status, but I contend that a lot has to do with how the college treats the students.  All of the colleges that have employed me  have provided students some sort of on-campus access to web-connected computers.  At some campuses, students are expected to check email and Blackboard on a regular basis.  At others, I have been told not to put anything online that is not also available in class, which severely limits my ability to do innovative stuff outside of class.  No blogs, no social networking, no microblogging, no Moodle even.  I feel like I have traveled backwards in time sometimes.

Back to the question.  What should we be able to expect on the part of students in terms of access to technology?  I assume mandating typed papers is ok, but should I expect that a student can email that paper?  If the institution provides access, is it reasonable to expect students to be able, say, to maintain a weekly blog?  Should they be able to expect me to post to Blackboard what they missed when they couldn’t come to class?  Should I expect them to contact me to find that out?  What are your experiences with students and technology?

In the last few weeks, I have given a few lectures on the Hays Code to film classes, and in one class we watched This Film Is Not Yet Rated, a film revealing the secrecy and inconsistencies of  the MPAA rating system.  After reading the “General Principles” of the Hays Code, I ask students what they . . . → Read More: Teaching Film Censorship]]>

In the last few weeks, I have given a few lectures on the Hays Code to film classes, and in one class we watched This Film Is Not Yet Rated, a film revealing the secrecy and inconsistencies of  the MPAA rating system.  After reading the “General Principles” of the Hays Code, I ask students what they think of the concepts.  Then we go into the more specific principles.  When I get to “white slavery” and “miscegenation” many students are justifiably horrified.  We then discuss who made the Code, what/whose values it reflects, and whether we should go back to something so stringent and moralistic.  While some lament the incredible amounts of sex and violence in today’s film, few think we should re-adopt the Code.

When it comes to the rating system, most had never thought much about it.  When I ask them to do the same analysis, it is more difficult, because the MPAA does not publish its guidelines, and all we have to analyze are the ratings of particular films.  It turns out violence is generally ok, and sex is generally not.  Homosexual sex most often gets harsher ratings.  Again, whose values do these reflect, and what does it mean that the main arm of our entertainment lives censors sex but promotes violence?  The Europeans do the opposite — limit violence but generally permit sex.

Beyond the moral implications of all this, I find it interesting the ways in which filmmakers use metaphor and suggestion to get around some of the restrictions. For example, a student astutely noticed the suggestive nature of the last image of North by Northwest, shown to the right.   One place to go to find clever evasions is anyplace that has strict censorship, such as Iranian cinema.   Iranian films that get exported often revolve around childhood, and very simple themes, but can often be read as metaphors for the current political system. Do target viewers become accustomed to the metaphors and read them appropriately, while those of us isolated in time and geography miss some of the subtleties, or are they equally (in)accessible to all?

IHE has run a few articles in the last . . . → Read More: Teaching links]]> A lot of my readers have either just begun teaching or will this week, so I thought I would post a few education-related links that have caught my attention recently. I’m sure I’ve missed a bunch, so feel free to post more links in the comments.

IHE has run a few articles in the last week or so about tech and education, including an interview with Curtis J Bonk, author of The World Is Open: How Web Technology is Revolutionizing Education; a discussion of free software; and a discussion of self-learning and edupunks.

This Wired article by Clive Thompson about new literacy has been getting some attention. He basically argues that young people are writing more than ever due to social networking, and that we,as educators, should take into account context in writing.

David Silver has an extensive tutorial about constructing a syllabus, walking through each step.

Some reflections from Bardiac about teaching comp, aimed at colleagues.

Prof Hacker is a fairly new, high-volume collaborative blog about teaching, technology and a host of interesting topics. Check it out if you haven’t already.

The two I think I am best at are:

VI. Thou Shalt Be Enthusiastic. My evaluations almost always . . . → Read More: Teaching reflections]]> IHE has a post on the “ten commandments of lecturing”, which is the type of thing I often find trite and repetitive, but for some reason I found this one a little refreshing and thought-provoking.

The two I think I am best at are:

VI. Thou Shalt Be Enthusiastic.
My evaluations almost always give me the highest marks for enthusiasm, which in my mind offsets the low marks for organization, but maybe I’m wrong about that.

X. Thou Shalt Seize Learning Moments.
I think my willingness to go way off my lesson plan to teach other, more relevant, timely or just plain needed material that comes up is a product of both my enthusiasm and my disorganization. A lot of this depends on what I am teaching and why, though.

The ones I think I violate the most are

III. Thou Shalt Not Lecture Like a Caffeinated Hummingbird or a Tree Sloth
I mean, I generally am pretty caffeinated, and I have said before that my spirit animal is probably the hummingbird. I am sometimes quite tired as well, especially in those morning classes. I try to pace well, and to vary activities, lecture speed and topic, but sometimes I know I am way too fast, or dwell too long on things that my students do not care about. I also don’t speak loudly enough sometimes.

IV. Thou shalt not assume too much.
The author is talking here about using theory that is over the students’ heads, which I agree can be a problem, but it extends to other things as well. The problem is, it’s hard not to assume too much, and sometimes I think assuming certain things is reasonable. I assume my students have what I would consider a basic vocabulary, but sometimes they don’t know words you think they might (“juxtapose” is the most usual example that comes up when talking about montage editing). I assume students have basic writing skills. They usually do, but not always. I assume that, although the classes I teach are almost always required, the students will have some interest in learning something. Of course they do, but it’s hard to connect to that sometimes. I assume that students keep up on current events, at least on a cursory level. This is a completely unfounded assumption, as illustrated in early 2000, I made reference to the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle, simply by mentioning “Seattle.” When confronted with 24 blank stares, I said, “You know the WTO protests?” Blank stares. “Do you know what the World Trade Organization is?” Not a single one. So, I guess this became a teachable moment, but a quick glance at a newspaper during that time — well, you get the idea. I assume that my students have technological skills that include sending and receiving email, and that can be expanded to operating Blackboard. In fact, I used to assume that all of my students were much more technologically aware and adept that I am, and some are, but not most. I think I will post again about technology and teaching soon.

Teachers, which commandments do you follow or violate most? Students, which ones are your worst pet peeves? MY students, which ones do I violate/follow that I missed here?