Thanks in advance

~[RAGE]

I agree with alot of what you say. I support integrating as many tools into a learning environment. Still, I think alot of what LMS systems do can be now reproduced with ease through a blog (with the exception of a grade book, making multi-media harder to rip and online quizzes and such). What you say about facebook, etc. is really cool. I can see there’s so much more to this discussion.

Podcasting– I put the file in my file sharing file, my students use their university logons and password to enter the file on the web, and download my podcasts.

What you say about coursework and blogging being kept separate, that’s very interesting. In my case, I use this blog as my homepage, and I do introduce personal things into it as you can see. However, I am pretty guarded about not sharing what really matters about my private persona (my feelings about work, about colleagues, my personal life situation) and focus on pop culture, literature and other interests. It’s personal but in a highly edited and artificial way. I blog here in a way that is extremely conscious — conscious that my students will see this blog, conscious that university administratrors will see this blog, conscious that readers on the web who have not heard of my campus will read my blog from time to time. I guess the separation of teaching and blogging in my online life is not so clear. But what you say makes sense, and I too try, in some ways, to maintain a distinction.

BTW–I just discovered screencasting and I’m playing with it alot. This is a promising tool.

thanks for the great intervention and the new ideas!

C

About podcasting. I already use an iRiver H120 to record MP3s and it works quite well. But I was wondering about the rest of the process, especially on the blogging side. Because I don’t self-host and because WordPress.com doesn’t support podcasting, I was wondering how you were producing the podcasts once the media files are available.

About student feedback. I still don’t get as much feedback online as I’d like to. Because my courses are “blended” (as in “classroom+online”), it matters fairly little. In fact, the effect of online activities is often in increased classroom participation, which is quite satisfying. But I’d still like to get more things to happen online. So far, I’ve found that private journals (especially early in the semester), Web Quests, and team projects seem the most effective at getting people active on the site. More than privacy, the issue of “community-building” seems to make internal communication more appealing to students than comments on public blogs. In a way, that’s kind of the reason why blogs and Facebook-like features in Moodle can work. (Although… so far, my students’ blogs inside Moodle have been pretty much empty.)
Another issue I have is with separating different parts of my life. I’m quite happy with having students look at my own blogs, I might take a look at my students’ own blogs, and it’s fun to have students contact me on Facebook. But I want to make sure coursework and blogging are kept somewhat separate, in my online life.

Looking forward to more of your comments about all of this.

I have nothing against learning management systems. I actually use moodle for one of my internet classes. However, Moodle et al are “closed” systems, password protected boxes. Course blogging is an open system. I don’t know how to say this, but it has a different “vibe,” and I prefer it. (I should think some more about this question and make a post on it because I notice that there is a divide between folks like myself and people who prefer Moodle/WebCt/ Sakai type models.) I find closed systems to be limiting in terms of the kinds of things I want to do, and the kind of tech learning environments I want to create as a professor in the humanities. Naturally, open systems can be criticized for issues relating to privacy, and student privacy most importantly. That’s an interesting topic but one that can be easily resolved with course blogs by giving students a good sense of why they may wish to be pseudonymous or not, and what tools they need to implement their preference. But a blog can be password protected too, so it’s not necessarily a deal-breaker.

Moreover, alot of what Moodle and WebCt do can be replicated in a blog environment without the assistance of third parties or any special programming knowledge. So ease of use is a huge factor. Blogs are definitely good if you like being left to your own devices and doing things very last minute. I often do things last minute so blogs afford me the flexibility of not making my Moodle administrator crazy.

About podcasts: I use garage band on my mac (it is bundled with all new macs) to record podcasts. However, you can use a web based program like Odeo to record yourself and then put some code on your blog so that a player appears and visitors can listen to it. The problem with that is that you cannot keep your MP3 and use it outside of Odeo. Another option is to buy a digital voice recorder and then download recordings onto your laptop. I’m actually buying one this weekend.

Here’s the Odeo site: http://studio.odeo.com/create/home

Finally, student feedback. The more ambitious use of blogging can cause alot of stress, namely making students blog. This is a kind of assignment that needs to be refined and worked on because my experiences with it have been mixed. Students find it very stressful and exhausting. Perhaps I’ve asked them to do too much. The more conservative use of blogging has been a sensational success– delivering handouts, information, streaming media etc. The students like that part because it makes their lives easier. So, this whole blogging thing continues to be a work in progress. When I ask students to blog in the future, I will do so more sparingly, or as an optional assignment, or for extra credit. The weekly “journalling” model makes them frustrated. At least, that has been my experience.

Hopefully some of my students will drop by and opine in person. I’ve had mostly good comments. The munchkins are often more tech savvy than we are and appreciate the effort.