 |
of the Museum Cafe's patio, demonstrating that he's
able to join the classroom discussion any time, anywhere.
Joyce Winslow
jwins@uoregon.edu
What is art? What is it for? Is food art?
These are some of the questions instructor Scott Huette raises in his
Art and Human Values course, and they beg for lively discussion and
a stimulating exchange of ideas. But Huette's courses are largely
distance education courses, where face-to-face interaction isn't
possible and discussions are traditionally confined to a single student-teacher
dialog within Blackboard. How to involve everyone?
Huette's answer: class blogs.
Huette has long been interested in investigating new technologies. A
photographer and digital artist in his own right, Huette has extensive
experience in video game production and "mashed” (mixed digital)
media, and he currently chairs the Artist Services Committee of Eugene's
avant-garde Downtown Initiative for the Visual Arts (DIVA). In 2006 he
organized a series of information technology workshops for the UO's
Teacher Effectiveness Program (http://tep.uoregon.edu/), and presented
the popular "Blogs, Wikis, and Podcasts, Oh My!” series that
inspired some notable teaching experiments in the School of Journalism
(http://it.uoregon.edu/itnews/archives/fall06/blaine.html) and Digital
Arts (http://it.uoregon.edu/itnews/winter07/skip.shtml).
Although the blogging format was already familiar to Huette, integrating
it with his Blackboard class site took a bit of work. Maintaining class
blogs also involves some effort and weekly "web housekeeping” on
Huette's part, as well as tech support from colleague Skip McFarlane
(http://it.uoregon.edu/itnews/winter07/skip.shtml).
Huette is the first to admit that introducing a new technology into the
curriculum requires some commitment and hard work at the outset. "Managing
blogs is a key piece of work for instructors,” he says. "There's
no easy, streamlined way to manage blogs and no manual for doing it.” Huette
also cautions that student privacy is an important concern for instructors. "You
must have a secure server and restrict access to the UO class only,” he
notes.
Huette has employed class blogs in his Art and Human Values courses for
three terms now. These distance education courses attract a diverse,
somewhat unconventional student body. Most are UO students seeking credits
for their degree, but a few--including a middle-aged Georgia businessman,
an active-duty serviceman stationed in Germany, and a number of Asian
students who chose to continue or finish parts of their education from
their homeland--have enrolled for other reasons.
The class blogs, where participants may post photos of themselves and
brief biographies as well as comment on class assignments, help to introduce
classmates to each other and lend some lively intimacy to what might
otherwise be a fairly austere and solitary learning experience. Other
benefits of class blogs include their potential to promote critical and
analytical thinking, stimulate intuitive, associative, and analogical
thinking, and encourage personal expression. In the process of setting
up and posting to their blogs, students also gain web skills and become
more adept at online research.
As the term progresses, the blog threads become an online portfolio.
Publishing their writings online for the entire class to see and comment
upon can also be an incentive for students to take a more thoughtful
and polished approach when completing their assignments.
Eventually, Huette intends to document student feedback on the value of their
class blogging experience. Over the course of the past three terms, some students
have spontaneously expressed either enthusiasm ("I love blogging!”)
or frustration with the blogging requirement. Huette says the frustration was
usually the result of students' either forgetting or losing their password.
For his own part, Huette feels the effort to set up and maintain class blogs
was well worth it. Not only have these online discussions added dimension to
the class experience, but they have also given him valuable insights as a teacher.
These insights "tend to be more of a personal nature,” he says. "I
get a better picture of the students as individuals by using the blogs. The students
are able to impart more personality into their blog and the postings than they
can using Blackboard's discussion boards. This is extremely important to
me in an online course with no direct face time with the students.”
Want to learn more about blogs? See our list of Blog Resources.