Blogs as Teaching Tools!

I've been using blogs in my communication classes here at Oregon State for the past three academic terms... and the students overwhelmingly love it! Although I intended to blog about the process of using blogs with my students, time got away from my once again and I let that fall completely by the wayside (we can save meta-blogging discussions for another time). I would, however, like to share the results of a study I conducted with the help of one of my graduate students.

Our project began with the underlying assumption that student motivation and engagement could be increased by putting their work online for a public audience. Normally students write strictly for their professors, essays are handed back, and the work gets thrown away or lost in a folder. By putting work online in the form of blogs, the work becomes part of the public domain and is geared toward a different audience. Not only is this more fun than writing a boring essay (who doesn't love adding pictures, videos, and a bit of personal flair?!), it encourages students to represent themselves more carefully by producing good work.

Students in my 'Communication in Organizations' class wrote blogs using Google's blogger site for class credit for an entire term. Each week they responded to a prompt that I provided, which meant they were consistently engaging the material on a weekly basis rather than writing one or two larger papers throughout the term. At the end of the term, the students participated in an in-depth interview with Julia, my grad student, about their experience blogging for class. She gathered their feedback regarding what they liked and disliked about using blogs in class, how it affected their motivation and engagement with the material, and suggestions they had for how professors can successfully use blogs as teaching tools. We transcribed all 24 interviews and then analyzed the data using a grounded theory approach.

The majority of the students were simultaneously surprised and excited when they first found out about the blogs at the beginning of the term. Although many professors around the U.S. are increasing the use of social media in the classroom, it's not common yet on our campus. Students reported in the interviews that they appreciated being able to design their own template and customize their blog to fit their personality. They enjoyed being able to include multi-media because pictures and video clips added an interest factor that simply doesn't exist when writing a traditional essay. They also reported spending substantially more time working on their blog than they would on a normal writing assignment -- partly because it was fun, but mostly  because they were hyper aware that anyone would be able to read it once they posted it to the web. My students indicated they were more motivated to produce good work because they wanted to establish a positive reputation for themselves with what they wrote.

The public nature of the blogs did raise concerns for some of the students. Although they recognize the importance of being able to navigate social media, it made some of them nervous to put themselves "out there" in the online universe for anyone to see. There is a level of vulnerability that comes with writing in the public domain. It is important for educators who are using these tools to be aware of this and manage it well in the classroom.

Several students reported sharing their blogs with family members and friends that didn't live nearby. I had one exchange student from Austria in the class, whose mom regularly posted comments on her blog. How cool is that?! Additionally, the students were able to view their classmates' work and compare it to their own. I frequently highlighted exceptional blogs during class, and a bit of healthy competition developed as a result. The students felt proud when their work got chosen and doing good work was actually promoted among the class.

I encourage my students to become as savvy at social media as they can, as it really is a necessity in today's job market. I emphasize that their blogs actually serve as a type of online portfolio -- a record of their work, which they can share and use to promote themselves (if done well and used strategically). The blogs also allowed a better student-professor relationship because I got to know them better through their blogs, which encouraged more face-to-face interaction as well.

I've used the feedback from my students to refine my process throughout the past few terms and it continues to be a successful approach for different classes. Julia and I traveled recently to the Western States Communication Association annual convention in Anaheim, where she presented our research. It was very well received and we had some terrific conversations with people using innovative teaching strategies at other institutions. It is exciting to see people adapting technology for use in the classroom! This is the world our students live in. We can reach them in much more meaningful ways when we can tap into the technology they are already using in their social lives and use it for the good of education!

I encourage you to experiment with blogs and other forms of social media in your classroom or your organization. They can facilitate good communication and better relationships, as well as promote education.

Blogs as Teaching Tools?

Greetings! I have been a notoriously bad blogger for the past two years, which is something I intend to remedy immediately because it would seem that in our current, technology driven world, blogs have become an important mode of communication. Not only can we share our ideas and experiences with friends and family, but blogs have also become relevant networking and information sharing tools in the professional world.

As a communication professor, I am always contemplating new teaching strategies and tools. I'm sure that anyone who teaches would agree with me when I say that promoting a sense of pride, ownership, and accountability for one's work among the students is one of the biggest challenges we face as educators. We assign readings, which many of the students don't do. Then we make them take quizzes or write reading responses, which they hate. The typical undergraduate today has grown up with technology and expects a fast, exciting, fresh approach to everything they do. I feel like many of the traditional teaching methods (e.g. lecturing on material in a textbook) just aren't relevant in our fast-paced world today. I hear professors complain all the time about students being lazy and entitled, but I actually find most of them to be pretty awesome if they are motivated in the right way. Perhaps all of us educators need to be more willing to embrace new approaches that work better for this generation, rather than wishing this generation would fall back on approaches that are becoming obsolete.

So I've been trying to figure out how to create assignments that make a broader impact and actually matter to the students beyond the classroom, with the goal of getting them interested and more involved. I landed on blogs as a possible outlet for this -- rather than turning in papers that only I will read, what if the students publish their writing online, on a public blog, and promote it to people who might be interested in things like workplace communication, relationships, and organizational processes?! Perhaps they will recognize the importance of producing high quality work because they are representing themselves among a broader audience, such as to potential employers. They could use their blog to network and connect with others who are interested in or already working in their chosen industries. They can get more creative with how they present information, and have a chance to utilize the technology that they are so good at using. We could have a 'best blog' feature each week because competition is generally pretty motivating. Hmmm... so many ideas.

I decided to implement this blogging experiment this term in my Comm 324 class, Communication in Organizations. I am lucky to have a friend from grad school who is a social media scholar and uses blogs in his classes -- shout out to Dr. Matt Kushin! Matt gave me a ton of great tips for how to get the students set up with their blogs and suggestions for how to integrate the blogs into class discussion. I've decided to provide the students with a specific prompt each week. They will post their blog entries based on the prompt prior to class each week, and we will integrate their ideas and observations into class discussion. It will require me to stay extra organized, but luckily I'm pretty good at that. I predict that it will be either  A) a brilliant success, or B) a complete disaster... but either way I am eager to try this new approach and see how the students respond to it. My intent is to reflect on the process here in my own blog as we go, so if you're interested in that kind of thing, follow my posts and share the experience with us! I'll share the featured blog of the week as well.

Cheers to trying new things!