Dr. Harrington’s Blog

This week’s reading is a report addressing issues arising from teaching with blogs.  I’m guessing that you’ll find parts of it dense, and parts of it quite easy to follow.  Brooks et al.are pretty clear about their aims: ” Our goal in this paper is to bring some greater specificity to, and advance the understanding of, weblogs as educational tools relevant to any class that takes writing and reading seriously.”

The introduction does a wonderful job of laying out their research questions.  Remember to read with an eye toward what they did as writers and researchers, as well as with an eye toward what they have to say about blogs.  Their introductory section displays their curiousity beautifully, ending with a specific research question (”which weblog genre(s) (if any) engage or motivate students to make significant contributions to their personal or class weblog?”).

They approach this task with a very thorough literature review covering their key terms of remediation, genre and motivation.  Amanda will find this great for her bibliography!    Don’t get bogged down with authors’ names, but do look for definitions of those key terms, and look for their research method.

This is a great example of teacher-research or inquiry, too.  So look at the relationship between their teaching and their writing.

The second half of the paper discusses their research findings; you may be interested in how they present their findings as well as what they found.

As you blog this week, think about the role of teacher inquiry.  What kinds of questions can you imagine asking based on your educational experiences?  What kinds of questions might emerge from our class?  How does your blogging practice, or your experience with other sites, map against Brooks et al.’s findings?

Enjoy!  And remember, James Gee is speaking tomorrow on campus–details, including a map, are in Oncourse mail.