Forced Blogging
When I introduced about 25 SHU students to blogs last week, and devoted a couple of hours to in-class blogging and troubleshooting, I was thrilled to see your personalities and voice coming through.
But since some students don't know what they want to write about, I did assign a few entries -- mostly posting their answers to traditional textbook exercises online.
I found that several students disliked my disruption of their personal space... see for yourself:
So... what do you think, students... how can I make "required blog" assignments more interesting to write, so that they feel more like what you want to do in your own blogging space?
What topics would YOU like everyone in your class to blog about?
Another thing I didn't think of... suddenly 25 copies of fake news articles (or at least commentary on fake news articles) will appear in the blogosphere. Will that spread rumors? Am I over-reacting? Would I feel differently if the fake stories were about ME? Things to ponder...
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Forced Blogging.
TrackBack URL for this entry:
7 Comments
Leave a comment
Related Entries
Keep Blogging
Hello out there! I thought I'd speak up on behalf of all the "lurkers" and shout out to the SHU blogosphere: keep on blogging in...
A Lurking Voice
I am not in any of your classes, but I wanted to thank all of you who put energy into your blogs this term. I've...
The Earthworm Saga
It has come to my attention that some of you are painfully unaware of the earthworm situation. Basically, they're bad for the environment (sometimes). On...
Oral REPORT Cloning
Introduction Thier has been possible talk about human clonning raised by a Scotish scientist at Roslin Institute that aroused a worldwide interest and concern because...
Forced Blogging for EL227: Research on Marriage
Based on what you have learned so far in "It Ain't Necessarily So," respond to the following USA Today article. On your be sure to...
yes, putting personal tidbits on blogs gives them personality! (yay! something that FINALLY makes sense!)
glad to see that someone agrees with me :)
I'm with Karissa. Just because we have to put our assignments in the blogs doesn't mean that we can't post other things as well. I have already posted a poem for a friend of mine that I wrote in like 10 minutes. It's not very well written and has room for improvement, but that's why I put it there in the first place. So it can be improved upon. Also, I am not very good at posting daily like others in my class, but I do try.
Tiff
OK, thanks for the clarification, Diana. It's clear that you are enjoying your overall experience. I'm actually PLEASED that people are showing this kind of ownership over their blogs, and I'd like to do anything I can to encourage it.
Karissa, Later today I'll try to post instructions about how to sort your entries by categories. If I haven't done it by Friday, please feel free to bug me!
I didn't have a problem with posting the information on my blog; however, I wish that there were a way for me to seperate the assignments from my "typical" blog entries. I believe that would be much more organized... is there a way to do that, and I just don't know it yet? (that's quite possible...)
About the "forced blogging," personally, I like it. I wish that I had more time to put into it, but other things are taking precedence over having truly fascinating blog posts. I'm trying to make them interesting by asking questions, and providing a bit of personal information, but I know that it would be better if I could invest more time into the project. Perhaps creative writing assignments would be best suited to be displayed on blogs...? In honesty, I was considering posting some essays and poetry that I've written, but I'm still in the "deciding phase" on that issue.
I agree with Jen. :)
Also, I would just like to note that I used the quote (Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else. - James M. Barrie) simply to tie the assignment in with my theme. I didn't mean to put down the work that should be going into the blogs.
I actually enjoyed the assignment, whenever I can't understand a point that someone is trying to make to me, I spurt off "Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?"
Of course I say it as one word, and quickly even for that, so people don't understand me, however the point is that I liked reading about the actual journalistic aspect of the questions.
I just couldn't find a quote that seemed to fit the nature of the entry, or rather entries, better.
I think it would be interesting if each student picked an area or subject about journalism, studied it in depth, and then posted entries about what they've discovered in their research. Jess Prokop's journal is the closest to what I have in mind. She's studying television with a critical eye, and she's learning both about the medium itself and her reaction to it.
I'd certainly like to blog on whatever news article we pick out from the newspaper on the assigned day. It will be fun if we all found something different, or even found something interesting and have different opinions or comments on it. This is a journalism class, and we started writing some journalism (even though it was fake-the first article we did as a spin on a fairy tale-and we had fun doing it, but I'd like us to get started on going out into the Seton Hill community-and maybe beyond- to write stories. I hope someone agrees with me!