Engaged Youth » Blogging curriculum (comments welcome)

Blogging curriculum (comments welcome)

November 13th, 2007 at 10:14pm Deen Freelon Permalink

I can speak to the blogging curriculum, as I have been working on how
to organize that. My current thinking is this: the curriculum should be
divided into two parts—one on the technical logistics of posting,
linking, formatting, commenting, etc.; and the other on the normative
ethic of blogging we want to instill in the kids. These two pieces will
need to be taught very differently, however. “How to blog” in a
rudimentary technical sense can be fairly easily written up in
step-by-step FAQ format, with screenshots, links to more information,
and the like. But how to blog effectively, civically, civilly—in other
words, how to blog well, is something that I think would be
very difficult to convey using only words on a screen. I feel strongly
that merely posting a list of do’s and don’ts will be insufficient for
this purpose (though worthwhile in its own right).

Thus, I propose that we put the technical guide (which I’ve already
outlined and need only to convert into kid-language) online and design
the normative piece as a combination of face-to-face (classroom) and
individual exercises. The meat of the latter will be a series of
prompt-based exercises in which we ask kids to freewrite on an idea,
quote, event, or issue of some interest to them. I will start
pilot-testing the general model for the normative component with the
kids next week (assuming Amber approves), and this is what I plan to
do:

Give the kids a blogging prompt based on national/local current
events, a quote, or a recent project.
Have them freewrite on a group blog (probably not the PSO alpha
site as Amber tells me she’s been having problems with it) for 5-10
minutes, with the goal of producing a 150-200 word post (this can be
scaled down if kids have trouble writing so much). If they finish
early, allow them to post pictures and possibly Youtube videos.
Assign each kid to write two brief comments on the posts of two
other kids. Suggest that they agree/disagree (and elaborate), ask a
question, relate an experience, or add additional evidence or points.
Have each kid read the comments they received and paraphrase them
to see if the commenter and commentee share a mutual understanding of
what was written. (What I am really trying to get at with this piece is
to have kids think about whether they are communicating effectively
with each other. Ideally, the group will be able to identify strategies
for getting their points across effectively to their peers. I want to
work on this part a bit to make it less boring and school-ish.)

Through the process of blogging on a series of issues—national, local,
personal, philosophical—the primary hope is to hone kids’ skills in
participation (effective communication) and tolerance (expressing
disagreement in civil ways, arguing and persuading rather than
“flaming”). Since all this will be happening online, we might also be
able to get local kids who can’t come to the Y physically to contribute
comments. They won’t learn as much, but the kids in the class will
still demonstrate a blogging norm that outsiders will hopefully hew to.

I can definitely have an ongoing curriculum finished and partially
pilot-tested by 12/15. We can probably also get one video PSA done by
that time. The trouble is that we have about five kids so far who come
in for 90 minutes every Monday when they remember or have
transportation. So if we get started with the blog curriculum and video
next week, that gives the kids 11/19, 11/26, 12/3, and 12/10 to work. I
think cranking out a 30-second PSA and piloting this blog curriculum
(in addition to doing other fun things to hold their attention) is a
substantial agenda for that amount of time.

But I’m always looking for feedback, so please let me know if anything
I’ve said sounds strange or unreasonable, or if it could just use some
tweaking.

Entry Filed under: digital learning skills

6 Comments Add your own

1. Deen Freelon | November 13th, 2007 at 10:16 pm

(posted by Chris Tugwell)

Deen -

All of this looks great, and if I’m not mistaken is covered in the blog curriculum you created for the summer session. Does the summer curriculum need any amendments?

Splitting the technical aspects of blogging from the how to is necessary. Especially, since this is an after school program. Jumping from seven hours of work to another 1.5-2.0 hours of work can be a drag. We need to avoid overloading the kids whenever possible. Keeping it simple and fun will ultimately lead to increased engagement. I suggest we try and keep the lecturing to a minimum.

I propose the we create a technical guide for the site; as well as, a technical “how to” for the kids involved in the editorial/leadership management groups. We would be naive to assume all the kids that come through the program know how to post, link, format… There are some creative ways to post the technical guide, stop animation being one. Or, the kids create a “how to vidoe” along with their normative video. We’ve talked about doing some contests to bring in users. A video contest would be a great way to get a technical guide and market the site.

Another key topic you touched on is tolerence. In my humble opinion, this is a seperate training. We need to teach young people about tolerence and how to respectfuly share opinions and ideas. I would hate for our diverse users to steer avoid the site because it doesn’t feel inclusive. We can explore turning this into a training module in further detail down the road.

We need to make sure and add a piece on how to provide constructive feedback. Modeling is a great way to demonstrate what we are looking for during the feedback session. Developing a safe environment is a must. Plus, it builds on the tolerence theme you talked about in your post. Normally, this can be accomplished with some ground rules or tips that remind participants that the intent of the feedback is to hone

Not sure about the issues with the PSO test site. I’ve seen a number of new posts and easily added one the other day. We can also talk about the best place to house their posts at a later meeting.

Whenever possible, I propose we create PowerPoints of our presentations. They are clean, easily shared, and offer wonderful visuals. Another bonus is you can incorporate the web into your presentations. Wouldn’t it be nice to link to the PSO blogging video during your presentation. Also, we’re trying to get young people to use technology.
2. Deen Freelon | November 13th, 2007 at 10:17 pm

Chris,

Thanks for the feedback. Just to respond quickly to your first comment about the differences between the current blog curriculum and what we did over the summer, I’ve been working toward improving upon the former in several key areas. As I recall, last summer we merely asked them to start writing in a vaguely civic fashion without taking the time either to define that in a comprehensive way or, crucially, evaluate and have them reflect on what they produced. The new blog curriculum will do both, fulfilling several of the new learning goals in the process, all while keeping it engaging for the kids. Easy, right? Well, it’s all a work in progress, so we’ll see how close we can get it.
3. Lance Bennett | November 14th, 2007 at 7:01 am

Thanks Deen

This sounds very good. In addition to the technical and the mind-set pieces you mention, I recommend thinking about a short motivational intro– a “what makes blogging fun for me” kind of thing. Idealy done by the kids as a video at the end of the current class.

The main thing is to get the following deliverables in the bag by mid December:

1. a PSA video (or two) for posting on the site

2. a brief written curriculum to go with them — one version in kid language for the site, and then package that with an intro for youth workers and organizations to briefly explain how blogging on PSO can help their kids reach larger audiences and show off their programs — and then suggest ways of training kids.

If this last piece seems too difficult, we can revisit this in January — perhaps working it into the site review and tweaking part of the Mac proposal.

How does this sound?
4. Deen Freelon | November 14th, 2007 at 9:56 am

Lance,

All of the written stuff is definitely doable, but I don’t think the kids will be able to help produce more than one PSA for next month due to time constraints and general kid flakiness. Now if it would be worthwhile for us to produce PSAs without kid involvement, we might be able to crank out another, but I don’t know how interesting that would be to kids or funders.
5. Chris Tugwell | November 15th, 2007 at 11:30 pm

The kids won’t be able to get a PSA completed before the new year. They don’t have all the necessary skills to create the video. There are also a few other items that need to get accomplished as well. A major one is the content statment/policy.
6. David Keyes | December 10th, 2007 at 4:39 pm

It wold be helpful to see this in terms of time blocks. What would you do with 4 or 5 1/2 our time blocks? Here’s my take on the construct, with four goals: understanding what a blog is and how it operates; developing comfort with generating content as participant (commenter); learning to be a blogger and what it takes; and understanding what makes them successful and creates impact.

1) First in my mind is intro (what is a blog, have you used one, if so which). What makes a blog popular? Are they all public? Where are they being used (pick a topic the youth are interested in and search or go to their favorite site). Post a comment (ideally show a couple examples/have them post with text, photo, video clip)

2) Learn to and get comfortable posting comments. Use to launch discussion of writing comfort, etiquette and conversation control.

3) What does it take to start one and then to become a “blogger?” How often should you write? Try creating a blog as a team of 2-4 together to share the writing. Pick things you might blog about first.

4) Write some short things for the blog. Feedback: how was it to post?

5) Hot blogging: how to build momentum, readership and participants? How can you use it to impact a topic?