That was the word in Yenan, China, July 1937

I don't often find myself quoting the Great Helmsman, but as I read what's going on politically west of here, and as I examine how technology transforms pedagogy, something Mao Zedong said is particularly apt:

If you want to know the taste of a pear, you must change the pear by eating it yourself.... If you want to know the theory and methods of revolution, you must take part in revolution. All genuine knowledge originates in direct experience.

TIP Conclusion #1

Writing on a blog doesn’t feel like learning, yet students are enthusiastically and energetically engaging in the Writing Process.

When students were asked questions about their feelings toward posting their own writing, commenting on others' writing, or reading others' comments, they were overwhelmingly (91%+) positive . Most students do not recognize blogging as the Writing Process, however, as evidenced by survey responses to direct questions about revision and peer review, which indicate a negative effect from blogging.

This finding is perhaps best explained in this student’s comment:

for the question ‘The blog helped me think more about what I was learning in class’ I disagreed, because when I was posting or commenting on the blog, I didn’t feel like I was really learning, although I actually was. I felt more like writing an article for a newspaper, and it was really fun, rather than like strict learning.

One-on-one interviews will clarify these findings.

The dust is settling

Everything seems to be all right on my end. Most of the kids really got into the blogging, and I think everyone did at least their assigned postings and commenting. I have to sit down and tally it all now. Mountains of data.

I assigned the kids one person to peer review for each of their postings, so I will give them a grade for that doing that. I think maybe 10 points for all 4 assigned comments, with a 10 (or 11) if they went over and above in their comments, and a 9 if they did all in an OK way, fewer points for fewer postings. I hesitate to grade the quality of their comments any more than that because it's new, but I'm being over-cautious. We also have a viewing media category in our LA grading, so I could weight it a little higher by considering it an LA skill (then I'm looking more for participation and less for content)

I will grade their short story final drafts, though, just as I would a "regular" short story assignment. I told them this ahead of time.

On the other hand, in the space of a year, some of my colleagues have gone from What's blogging? to treating it like a drop box for assignments, so the question raised is When do we stop using token grades and actually assess for content and form? I suppose that's a decent question for MAET Class of 2009 to consider in a TIP. Still, I'm not sure. Blogs are quickly becoming institutionalized on my campus, so it'll be interesting to see how they progress in the minds of teachers and of students.