From another student:
I started blogging because my class for Web Design required us to create individual blogs, modify them using CSS, and post in them. Then I discovered I like tweaking the blog, adding new features - sort of like upgrading a toy that will not stop improving. My desire to write has expanded to new heights. I used to write in diaries, short stories, about interesting things occassionally.
Funny...the quality is really spotty in this year's work. Half are really bad, the other half are really good. Not much middle ground. Either they took it seriously and really got into it, or they blew it off completely. <sigh>
Liz, you just described _all_ webloggers.
<chuckle>
Point well taken.
Except these guys are getting graded. ;-)
And we're not (she asks with visions of daypop, blogdex, popdex, technorati, bloggies, et al in her mind mind)? To be honest, I think I'd rather have a clean, honest grade.
Speaking of which, what kind of grade would I get? Huh? Huh?
Ummm, don't answer that, I have a fragile ego.
Too late. You asked.
So...
Let's see...
Using the gradesheet (http://www.it.rit.edu/~ell/assignment.php?id=10) criteria:
Content
Quality - √+
Damn. It cut off all my grading. Phhbt.
Short version: you got an A-. Would have been an A+, but there's no "about me" page. :-)
Liz, you’ve got a lotta chutzpah to say right out in public that “half are really bad. . . ,” with stuents who read your blog.
Chutzpah? Wait til her neighbors discover her blog!
But seriously, I very much doubt that there is any objective way to rate blogs. I assess my "success" in blogging by reflecting on whether it brings good things my way. It's a deeply personal thing.
It wasn't the blogs per se that I rated; it was whether they'd included required components--an "about me" page, an "about this site" page, significant CSS modifications, and blog postings that included links to in-class assignments and discussions of the readings. These aren't intended as personal blogs, but as class journals.
As to the chutzpah...yeah, well, I've never been accused of a shortage of that. But I didn't say anything here that I didn't also say in the classroom. I was surprised by how many people just didn't do the basics of what I asked in the assignment--but the ones who did, did it extremely well. And the grade distribution this time was very odd--more Ds than I've ever given for a major assignment in the class, but far more As, as well.
But Liz, nobody wants to know 'about' me. I think I should get points for not providing this page.
It sounds like the students who did very poorly with their blogs probably did poorly out of just not trying, not doing it, lack of motivation? In which case they're very unlikely to bother to read this blog, either...
I've just started using blogs with my students and it's going to be very interesting to see how things develop. I found an article at Schoolblogs about how there are three phases in a class weblog:
1. The Class Weblog as an Information and Resource�Base.
2. The Class Weblog as a Developing Community.
3. The�Class�Weblog as Community Weblog
(http://www.schoolblogs.com/stories/storyReader$179)
That might not hold when each student has their own blog as in our classes. But what you're describing is a different issue anyway - perhaps it's just that blogs REALLY work for some students and they really don't work for others?
Of course there are some students who really can't handle X hour school exams, or oral exams or the two week term paper or the 15 page essay but who might be good at other genres. I suppose the students we've got have been selected for their skills in these traditional genres, which might not translate to skills in blogging.
Hm.
Interesting stuff, anyway,