Digital Literacy Through Blogging and Multimedia Writing

Reflection:

Because this lesson comes from a course that I actually developed with a blended approach, there have not been any radical changes in this revision. It turns out that I have already been using constructivist strategies that are key aspects of the CIM, POE and CCM models, but I just didn’t know the labels for them.

Because the assignment called for the development of an online instructional/workshop lesson that included about 1 hour of instruction, I did have to make some changes in a few areas, though.  For example, the self-introduction is now on video and I have eliminated many administrative aspects of the real-life course’s first two weeks (such as setting up students on Gmail and an LMS) in order to focus on the most essential elements of the course curriculum: developing digital literacy through blogging, photography, writing, and filmmaking.

I also added online surveys that would enable even the quietest, shiest students to have a voice by making predictions about key aspects of online privacy, the future of the internet, and digital footprints. Not all the surveys require students to identify themselves, so under guarantee of anonymity, they are able to reflect sincerely and “speak” honestly about their true beliefs.  This is rarely possible in a face-to-face environment—especially on the first day of classes. Surprisingly, many internet users are still sadly unaware of the need to take reasonable precautions when going online. As a result, Part 1 of the lesson attempts to encourage students to engage in the most serious possible self-reflection before they get started with building their blogs. This is not so easy to do in the classroom.

Part 2 of the lesson is very similar to the way I currently teach it. Rather than lecture or do a live demonstration of how to set up a WordPress blog, I provide students with short video tutorials that provide just enough information to get them started, but also leave out a lot of details.  This is partly because students generally lose interest after about 6 minutes of video, but mainly because I want them to experience the challenge—and success—of struggling through their Zones of Proximal Development.   Because many of my previous tutorials had become outdated (because of changes in the WordPress interface), I thought that Assignment 2 would be a good opportunity to remake the videos and ended up producing a total of eight.

I also discovered, while building the site, Padlet makes it easy for students to post their blog URL’s on the parent website for the course.  This is something that I have always done myself—and students have frequently expressed the desire to do it themselves, so this is a change that I may be implementing very soon in the real-life course.   

I tried several online collaboration apps and ruled out those that don’t work on Android or that require students to register. (Popplet, Spiderscribe, etc.)  I favored eduCanon, Padlet, and Google Forms because they give teachers the option of allowing learners to interact without being required to log in.  I used Camtasia to create the video tutorials and found the basic WordPress setup tutorial to be the most difficult to produce.  This is partly because WordPress’s interface has changed and become much more complicated than it was when I made my first tutorial.  However, I am pleased to note that the vast majority of WordPress setup tutorials are exponentially longer than mine.

I take a more holistic approach to evaluation because, although blogging is an important aspect of digital literacy, it is also a very ambiguous one, beginning with the issue of how to name a blog: should one use a pseudonym or real name?  If one uses a pseudonym, doesn’t that detract from the authenticity of that blog? On the other hand, is the blogosphere becoming too dangerous for one to use a real name?  Other ambiguities include a wide range of other issues — from aesthetics to politics to art appreciation to the old Apple vs PC debate.  Evaluating blogs, images, videos, or anything else related to digital literacy is not a black and white process.  It is not like math or physics, where the facts are the facts—and very little grey area exists.  With so much grey area in the realm of digital literacy, I think it is presumptuous to formulate a precise set of criteria by which to evaluate students’ work.  For that reason, my rubrics take a decidedly holistic approach.

Although I enjoyed working on a one hour online lesson, I found it impossible to compartmentalize all the best constructivism into just one hour.  In Part 3, students are set up for a 3 week project in which they will collaboratively learn about filmmaking shots—then produce some of them in their own work.  And Part 4, I suspect, may not be doable at such an early stage of the course. It may be more reasonable to ask students to share their newly made blogs after they have had more time to get them organized and looking good.  This, among many other aspects of this lesson, is something that will require careful assessment and reflection on my part.