Today, I presented at the NCTE Annual Convention on a panel that also included a look at MySpace and an international blogging activity.

Blogging to Learn

My presentation was an introduction to uses of blogs at different levels (elementary, high school, and college) for both students and teachers. My main point is that blogs, when used appropriately, spark learning:

"The essence of teaching is to make learning contagious, to have one idea spark another."
--Marvan Collins

Blogs are especially good at sparking learning because they multiply the learning that occurs in the classroom as students

• interact with each other, reiterating course concepts;
• encounter different perspectives, leading to resolving contradictions and thus critical thinking; and
• become motivated to write more when others respond and have a sense of ownership with an authentic audience.

Blogs also work well as course management tools. Teachers can provide models, recap lessons, disseminate information, and so on. As I've had more than a few students lose handouts, I like having course information and examples online so students always have access to course materials and concepts. But even for those students who don't lose their materials, it's convenient for them when blogging to be able to see examples online pertinent to the task while online. To see the presentation, go to "Blogging to Learn".

Cultural Literacy and My Space

Another presenter, Ali Mageehon, teaches at New Mexico State University at Alamogordo, and she talked about using MySpace in the classroom in an intermediate developmental writing class. Her students who were to do a cultural analysis essay of Myspace, answering questions like these:

• Who uses MySpace? Describe the demographic profile of the “typical” MySpace user.
• How might you describe MySpace to someone who has never encountered either MySpace or a computer?
• Based on what you have observed, why is MySpace so popular?

But for the most part,

Essays were largely students rehashing a common theme – that MySpace is popular because it gives them a chance to keep in touch with their friends.

It sounds like a good assignment, but Ali said that the students did not enjoy critically analyzing their social spaces. they felt that school and their social spheres should stay separated.

Generally speaking, we want to tie school learning to students' own societal practices: It makes the learning relevant, authentic, and potentially long lasting. But students may have other ideas. We need to consider how to encourage students to make these connections between school and their social life, to help them see the relevance of being able to analyze their every day life, to become more critical thinkers and writers.

"Multimodal Expression in an International Blog: Writing, Literature, and Technology."

The third panel of co-presenters was Donna Reiss and Art Young from Clemson University, who, along with Magnus Gustafsson of Chalmers University in Sweden, set up a blog looking at modernism in literature in ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ for three classes: Fiction for Engineers (for graduate students), a second year general education American literature survey, and an M.A. seminar in Victorian seminar.

They wanted to

Develop an international learning community

• Foster community by connecting to an audience not physically present in letters, a genre recognizable as interactive: a writer, a reader, a respondent
• Invoke “presence” through salutations and signatures that project voices and social roles while developing content
• Invite writers to include personal and cultural as well as literary responses
• Encourage reflection and revision with asynchronous communication

The students included a large number of English language learners from countries, such as "Iceland, Norway, Spain, France, Russia, China, Afghanistan, and more." As they concluded,

Intercultural writing and reading assignments provide a rich context for student-directed learning across a variety of boundaries (language proficiency, academic discipline and level, cultural background, and constraints of time and space).

Letters in an electronic medium proved to be familiar and versatile, enabling students to fulfill assignment goals and develop new communities of interpretive practice beyond their individual classes.

Obviously, blogs can be used in a variety of ways to facilitate learning. The main points are to have the students interact with one another in ways they can find interesting.