Step 5: Reboot Student Sites as Public Blogs
Unit 3 | Week 7 (Kickoff) | ePortfolio Digital Track
Goals: Students will revise their site structures for the first time, to begin thinking about larger audiences, and public projects.
Until this point, student’s sites have been repositories for their work: a line of communication between them and you. Now, however, they’re going to re-orient their blogs to be semi-public: posts will go beyond personal reflections and address the larger audience of the class, and the public.
To do this, you’ll show students examples of public blogs/feeds as a way of thinking about their own writing in circulation. Students will also gain access to one another’s blogs as they regularly check in on one another’s projects.
Preparing for Step 5:
❏ Show students examples of journalist Twitter accounts, academic blogs, research blogs, etc., as new modelsfor their site.
❏ Show students how to create a new public blog tab on their site. Make it clear that these posts might be included as part of the Final Portfolio (they will ultimately decide which ones to keep!).
❏ Give students access to one another’s blog pages (as a peer review tool).
Examples of Step 5 in action:
Maria (Video Track): Maria walks their students through making a new Public Blog tab on their websites now that they’re entering the Profile unit. They explain that these will be a public-facing part of their Final Portfolio, and so students will want to think like real journalists / documentarians. To make this point, Maria shows them the blogs of one of the vloggers they looked at previously.
Leo (Audio Track): Leo walks his students through making a new Public Blog tab on their websites now that they’re entering the Profile unit. He has a couple of students ask what the difference is between this tabs and the previous blog posts they were making. Leo explains that with the old posts, these were simply ‘turning in assignments,’ but they weren’t having to think about larger audiences.One student chimes in that they’re still just turning assignments! Leo agrees: this is true. But, Leo explains how this new blog tab will eventually be part of the Final Portfolio, and will even document their process for their audience. He frames it as a ‘behind the scenes’ setup for their Profile papers, and he shows them several podcast Twitter accounts to show them what he means.
Tips and Tools:
Student privacy is still crucial! Students are only required to share their work with their classmates at this point, even though the blog is being framed as public. If you do have a student who resents the idea of sharing their work, you can discuss with them how they want to proceed on a case-by-case basis.
You may invite such a student to share the posts in a Google Doc, or communicate more directly with you.
Foreshadow the Final Portfolio: Remind students that these new blog posts will be valuable artifacts in the final website that they present. The more effort they put into it now, the easier their time will be at the end of the semester.
Back to Step 4.
Next to Step 6.