Almost Like Eavesdropping

For two semesters in a row now, I’ve required my college students to keep ongoing blogs connected to the topics we cover over the course of a semester. I tinkered a lot with how/whether to assign topics, whether to host them on Blackboard or send them to outside sources, how to assess them and how/whether to require commenting on each other’s blogs (in case you’re curious, I ended up with a mix of assigned/unassigned, outside blogging sites, required comments, and am still trying to find the perfect assessment solution).

Because I’m teaching in media and communications, I think it’s imperative to ask students to try their hand at new technologies, which they will almost certainly encounter when they enter the job market. I love that it asks them to expand on the material we’re reading in a new way, and I always, always love assignments that ask students to write more. Not only does it sharpen their communication skills, which are essential in every field, but it encourages students at every level to reflect on the course in a new way when they are asked to write about it. I think requiring them to blog also helps them think about the medium of blogging in a way you really can’t until you’ve tried it for yourself, and as blogs become more and more prevalent, this is also an essential skill.

While reading over my students’ blogs at the end of this semester, however, I discovered a new benefit– eavesdropping! In both the posts and the comments, my students debated the merits of the required texts, suggested new books we could read, made connections to popular culture, brought up relevant anecdotes, and proposed new activities and assignments for the subject matter. I think it’s fair to say that much of what they said would not have come out in class, and while they might have said it individually to me, then they wouldn’t have been debating amongst themselves.