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Tip: Use One's Own Blog For Replies to Others You Could Take Heat For - Don't Comment on Another's Blog
An important rule of thumb we can pass on to other edubloggers is to comment to others' posts with ideas you are comfortable with as-is, without the option of them being edited or deleted in future.
Emotionally charged content, rants, and drafts should be posted in one's own blogs, with links to the posts that inspired you. That is what this post is about - a rant about perceptions of what edublogging is about. Most educators think grafting current perspectives of teaching into edublogging is innovative. It is not. Commenting on comments like we are doing here makes it like a forum - far too limiting. But if we all brought our ideas back to our individual blogs, we would all have full control over how we present our ideas, to whom, and have choices in future over editing and deletion. The nuts and bolts of edublogging is being worked out in living text right now. This conversation is an example of the transformative processes we as learners are undergoing using edublogging.
This conversational event for me has triggered critical self-reflection. For me, I think that the issue of ownership and control of what we say, and working concurrently within a number of "spheres of concern" (private, student circle, university community, academic learning community, and so on) poses a number of issues that change our perspective of who we are and how we could/should give voice to our thoughts.
It is interesting that we all tend to be very self-critical as writers, and oscillate between holding back, and then we ease our censor, and start writing ideas we could get heat for. This really makes me ambivalent about posting, really cautious, about opening myself to scrutiny. Terry Anderson has encouraged me to post to more public academic blogs, and I have begun to take these steps. Up till now, edublogging is either/or: either a closed system of personal/group blogs with no access to the public sphere, or a public blog meant for as broad an audience as possible. Case study after case study have referred to the first scenario, always forcing learners to post, always restricting the edublogging activities within a sandbox, always highly directive and structured, always within a context of the instructor evaluating and directing and coaxing learners' blogging activities, and always requiring learners to work in a vacuum, posting and commenting on others ideas without guarantees of instructor or peer guidance nor feedback. Yuck! Who in their right mind would volunteer to participate in such blogging as a learning activity? I most certainly would not choose to. But this is probably what is considered edublogging by most educators today.
Glenn Groulx
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Hi Glenn,
I share your concern. I have always been an open and honest person but this experience has caused me to rethink this. I'm a lot more hestitant to voice my own opinions to the public as a result. I don't thik others are as tolerant of me making a mistake in the process of learning. I don't always know the answer. I am trying to figure it out and reflecting for others to comment on my thoughts is not always a benefit. Shame, since I always did feel that it was an essential part of creating academic knowledge.
Well I share some of these concerns, I am afraid you may be throwing the baby out with the bath water. Thomas, as you noted the remark should probably not have been made - within or without a password protected site. But I don't think anyone has censured or expressed disapporval of your thoughts and ideas (baked or half done), thus I am sorry to hear you are more reluctant to make these thoughts known. Don't let a single, very small mistake lessen your opportunites for learning and for helping us learn!
Hello Thomas,I will share you an error I made while teaching. A male student acted inappropriately and began harassing female students using the internet tools I had shown him how to use. The female students were able to bring this forward after the end of the class. I was completely unaware. Had they not come forward, I would never have known. I felt really, really badly for a long time that I should have acted to protect the students' privacy more, and this incident has made me reflect and come up with improvements in my teaching practice.I have been known to also state unguarded comments that were a snapshot in time, when my internal censor was asleep. I think we all do that at some point, though, and I look back on those comments later and track the emotional content that flows through it. It takes a great deal of courage to let loose on your emotional thoughts and opinions. It illustrates the fact that students need to be given more practice identifying their audiences and messages, and be allowed to make mistakes.But I cannot help wondering if what you commented on was, for you, and authentic "truth" based on gut impressions. It is an opportunity for further reflection, and it might lead to a more reasoned explanation for your ideas.This is from a guy who, in another life (youth) blurted out to a journalist: "Socialism sucks. It is an immoral system and I want nothing to do with it".Now that got published in the Toronto Star, to my embarassment, and it took me some time to live that one down. C'est la vie!Glenn
What a great stream of responses! So, we're all human, and this new technology is enabling us to prove it! While our use of the commenting feature as a discussion forum may be more like a discussion forum than a blog, I think that only serves to prove that we in fact need a discussion forum in a distance ed course! I like the fact that I can connect (privately, with my course mates) in a course and hash out thoughts and ideas. I don't think I was ready to blog, I have a couple started of my own, but find it very difficult...think it stems back to when I was 8 years old and my diary was discovered by an obnoxious older brother who proceeded to reveal my deepest secrets to the whole family while they all laughed and disapproved accordingly! Seriously though, I think I prefer the blogs that are purely informative, or have a very specific purpose so that I can get the information I need to do something better and get on with it. I rarely read fiction as well, so that might be an indication that I need to be more reflective and loosen up! I have learned a lot by observing in this class, I know I haven't been that active, but I sincerely appreciate those who have - Thomas and Glenn in particular! Thank you..
And Terry, I think it is absolutely hilarious that you shared your thoughts about Socialism in your youth with such candor! I think sharing these types of thoughts after the fact really give us a sense of what a person is about beyond the postage sized stamp and bios...and I have to say that I agree! Socialism can certainly prevent people from reaching their potential...
Hi Alexandra,You raise a very important point about students having concerns regarding involuntary disclosure, possibly leading to ridicule. I have posted a student bloggers' bill of rights and responsibilities that take into account this fundamental ethical issue of ensuring student privacy.Just a minor point of clarification. I was the one who made that impulsive comment about socialism, and not Terry. I was 18 years old, and involved in a political campaign. :)A friend laughed so hard afterwards, he threatened he would make up a T-shirt saying Socialism Sucks! and wear it proudly at school. :)