Last fall, I had my two Oral/Interpersonal Communications and my Written Communications classes participate in blogging for six weeks. The technical college where I’m a part-time adjunct didn’t need me this spring; otherwise, I would have had my classes blogging again. Recently I received an email from another blogger who also teaches. She wanted to know my thoughts on this, so I’ll share them.
My intent was to have them become used to presenting themselves professionally on the Internet. The reactions were negative at first: what’s a blog? Why can’t we do Facebook? I can’t get logged in. My password doesn’t work. It took about two weeks of coaxing, explaining, and training them how to log in and how to write comments.
Once that phase got handled, I was amazed at how positive everyone became. I had them read a weekly assignment, and then post a comment. The assignments varied between something I wrote, something in another person’s blog, and something in the mainstream media such as a program on NPR or an article in a news magazine. They were graded on how well their comments reflected comprehension of the reading matter, showed original thinking, and how well they wrote. There was a lot of indignation that they couldn’t use text message shortcut words.
At the end of the six weeks, students had to reflect on the blogging assignments. I’ll discuss this in detail, as well as what I learned, in a few days. You can visit the two blog sites by going to View my complete profile, scrolling down, and selecting either Erica’s Communication Class or Erica’s Writing Class (or visit both).
My intent was to have them become used to presenting themselves professionally on the Internet. The reactions were negative at first: what’s a blog? Why can’t we do Facebook? I can’t get logged in. My password doesn’t work. It took about two weeks of coaxing, explaining, and training them how to log in and how to write comments.
Once that phase got handled, I was amazed at how positive everyone became. I had them read a weekly assignment, and then post a comment. The assignments varied between something I wrote, something in another person’s blog, and something in the mainstream media such as a program on NPR or an article in a news magazine. They were graded on how well their comments reflected comprehension of the reading matter, showed original thinking, and how well they wrote. There was a lot of indignation that they couldn’t use text message shortcut words.
At the end of the six weeks, students had to reflect on the blogging assignments. I’ll discuss this in detail, as well as what I learned, in a few days. You can visit the two blog sites by going to View my complete profile, scrolling down, and selecting either Erica’s Communication Class or Erica’s Writing Class (or visit both).
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