Shira Tarrant, "The Little FemBlog That Wasn't" (Page 3 of 3)
Ideas for Future Success
Was I naïve in thinking that ad hoc, point-free blogging would work?
Not really. I have successfully assigned other point-free projects in
the past. These have included, for example, impromptu writing
assignments about controversial issues raised in class discussion or
spontaneous collective action attempting to establish a women's resource
center on campus. (No points were given to students for their
involvement in this latter example, and the administration rejected our
efforts, but it was a worthwhile project nonetheless.) The difference
this time was that successful blogging required an ongoing engagement
with the process. This was not a one-shot effort like the ungraded
projects I had assigned in the past.
In the future, I expect that three key items will invite greater
success in using blogging as a pedagogical tool. First, providing points
for posts is a fair exchange. In the context of college courses, where
opinions and data are traded in the marketplace of ideas, and where
grades are the currency, points are a legitimate form of feedback and
reward.
Second, a successful classroom blog requires more structure—at least
at the beginning of the process. The pedagogical technique most similar
to blogging has been my use of the discussion feature on Blackboard,
where I have posed highly structured sets of questions. Students were
expected to log on during specifically allocated time periods. Within
this more structured framework, online student dialogue was robust. It
often took unexpected turns, veering off in fruitful directions.
Students who were quiet in the physical classroom found their "voice"
within the relative safety of these virtual discussions. In this regard,
online posting met my established goals of increasing student
participation and expanding the avenues of discussion, while also
providing opportunities for me to redirect the discussion or provide
correct information where appropriate. The drawback to Blackboard
discussion, though, is that, as my student Dana put it in an email to
me, "it's a bit stuffy." In contrast, blogging "is a pretty cool way to
make our ideas public and be able to read everyone else's
thoughts—especially for quieter students, it's an informal, less
intimidating way to get your point across."
Finally, the blogging process may benefit from forthright discussions
about feminist pedagogy and Internet technology.[2]
If feminist
pedagogy includes the ability to question power dynamics within the
classroom, then blogging opens possibilities for a democratic learning
process. As a pedagogical strategy, blogging helps us achieve key
feminist goals in the virtual world. Using blogging in the classroom
means that a) we are committed to leaving no woman behind when it comes
to Internet technology; b) that women and feminists are active agents in
making sure information technologies are "directed towards enhancing
human well-being rather than strengthening existing power
monopolies"[3]; and c) that feminist classrooms encourage
"greater freedom of spirit and of the experience to be
creative."[4]
Discussing these points in advance may have
benefited my students and encouraged them to blog more actively.
In sum, the next time I use blogging as a supplement to classroom
teaching, I will do things a bit differently: I will jump-start the
online interactive process by providing extra credit or points toward
class participation, and I may also assign pedagogical literature about
technology and feminism. I will definitely provide structured guidelines
and expectations for online discourse. Presenting students with sets of
questions before logging on lets them know what to expect and provides
the opportunity to mull over topical issues. Blogging does not require
ongoing micromanagement, but providing initial structure helps. As
simple as this sounds, this is a point I missed in my first pass using
blogging as a classroom element.
Ideally, however, providing structured questions to stimulate blog
responses is necessary only in the most limited sense. This is, after
all, a medium distinguished by the possibilities for individuality and
intellectual creativity. If I were to instruct my students with precise
"what, when, where, and hows," they would no longer be blogging; the
exercise would have to be called something else.
When blogging works well, students quickly find their "sea legs."
Online discussions provide opportunities for students to find or expand
their confidence in articulating the logic and implications of theory
and politics. The safety and distance that online posting provides
ensure that students who are shy or more methodical do not get talked
over by more eager students whose hands easily shoot up in the air in
the classroom setting. Understanding students' fears of vulnerability on
the Web will help bypass potential problems with blogging
participation.
But, that said, perhaps a blog is not always the best way to go.
Sure, blogging sounds like a cool idea. It is certainly the medium of
the moment. But if my ultimate goal was to create a forum for the free
and lively exchange of ideas, to push the students and myself to think
more deeply, analytically, and critically about the material we were
reading, then I know for sure this goal was met during our weekly
face-to-face discussions, our impromptu meetings on campus, our panel
presentation at a national conference, and our adventure at the "Sex
Workers' Art Show." There's nothing quite like human connection to get
those feminist juices flowing.
Postscript
The good news is that when I last checked in on our blog, I
discovered that a post had been made in October 2005. This was five
months after the class had ended and the three members of my independent
study had graduated. While there were only two posts during the
semester, five more appeared after the class was officially over. This
tells me that although our blog did not make the splash I had hoped for,
the possibility remains that blogging can create a discussion forum with
reach beyond the classroom walls. And, to this feminist professor, that
is ultimately what education is all about.
The author sends many thanks to Emma Douglas, Sarah Morse, and
Cara Peckens for their keen sense of intellectual adventure.
Endnotes
1. Vicki Tobias, "Blog This! An Introduction to
Blogs, Blogging, and the Feminist Blogosphere," Feminist
Collections 26, nos. 2-3 (Winter-Spring 2005): 11-17,
http://www.library.wisc.edu/ libraries/WomensStudies/fc/fcblogs1.htm.
[Return to text]
2. The literature on pedagogy and feminist
blogging is still relatively new. For recent perspectives on blogging in
feminist classrooms, see Tobias, "Blog This!" Also see "Round-Up:
Blogging Women's Studies," Feminist Collections 27, nos. 2-3
(Winter-Spring 2006): 15-21,
http://www.library.wisc.edu/ libraries/WomensStudies/fc/BlogRoundup.pdf.
For discussions about feminist pedagogy, the Internet, and cyberspace—if
not about blogging per se—see Lucretia McCulley and Patricia Patterson,
"Feminist Empowerment Through the Internet," Feminist Collections
17, no. 2 (Winter 1996): 5-6,
http://www.library.wisc.edu/ libraries/WomensStudies/fc/fcmccul.htm; Sara
P. Pace, "Feminist Pedagogy and Daedalus Online: the Scholarship of
Teaching and Learning," Academic Exchange Quarterly 6, no. 1
(Spring 2002): 104-110; Pamela Whitehouse, "Women's Studies Online: An
Oxymoron?" Women's Studies Quarterly 30, nos. 3-4 (Fall-Winter
2002): 209-225, http://www.uwsa.edu/ ttt/articles/whitehouse.htm; Carol
L. Winkelmann, "Women in the Integrated Circuit: Morphing the
Academic/Community Divide," Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies
18, no. 1 (1997): 19-42.
[Return to text]
3. Lourdes Arizpe, "Preface: Freedom to Create:
Women's Agenda for Cyberspace," in Wendy Harcourt, ed.,
Women@Internet: Creating New Cultures in Cyberspace (New York:
Zed Books, 1999), xv. [Return to text]
4. Ibid. [Return to text]
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