Blogging and Message Boards

After hearing Millie's presentation, I've been thinking about my own. I think I originally said that I wanted to explore voice and identity (culture,etc) in classrooms with messageboards. I will now incorporate "and blogging". I see plenty of opportunity using both tools in class. I think most of the students are doing a research section of their paper and then a practical application section. At least that's what I gathered from Trevor, Trang, and Jane's presentations. I'll ask Cathy when we discuss written rough drafts.

Anyway here is what some of the dividing factor to include both...Although Faigley reports success with synchrous message boards(almost 10yrs ago), in "When Blogging Goes Bad", Stephen Krause says that he thinks emailing is better. He writes, "But I still see the dynamic and conversational exchange made possible by a rather "old fashioned" electronic writing genre, email-- specifically, an electronic mailing list discussion-- as uniquely valuable in writing classes." He says he has more control, the ability to monitor. http://english.ttu.edu/kairos While he says blogging has a place in the classroom, he definitely advocates an emailing type system. On the other hand, I cannot ignore Ferdig and Trammel when they say blogging opens new perspectives and new audiences.

What do you think about using the class discussion board asynchrounously for editing papers? Then using the blog for free writes and research? But keeping the blog anonymous. For instance the blogs would be posted on the class website but not with students' names. (I think everything we have heard a presentation on blogging, at least a couple of people mention privacy). Does this sound manageable? It's sort of like what we did this semester with the synthesis papers on the discussion board and research on the web. Also if we met in the writing lab for class, we could start class once a week with a free write on the blog.

I can't wait to see how this is going to work in a real situation...I personally enjoy this part of class...the blogging and message boards. Maybe 'cause I'm nosey. I always wonder what everyone else is thinking/some people are so quiet.

Sorry this entry isn't really an analysis of an article. Just wanted to see what you'd think of using both in the classroom