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Why Blog? Workshop using Open Space Learning

theory building
By On August 10, 2011 In Collaboration, Learning, Technology, The Internet, Website Production With Comments Off Permanent Link to Why Blog? Workshop using Open Space LearningPermalink

I am in the process of trying out a Why Blog? workshop using Open Space Learning techniques.

The idea came from noticing that there are lots of resources and support on how to blog but nothing explaining to those new to the concept of blogging on why it could be a useful practice.

The objectives of the workshop include:

  • Question preconceptions of ‘bloggers’
  • Understand that there are different types of blogs
  • Offer insight into how you can differentiate one type of blog from another
  • Offer guidance on how one might starting blogging (beyond the technical know-how, e.g. clarify what purpose it might serve, who might find it useful)

The activities are:

1. What does a ‘blogger’ look like?

Group are asked to draw their impression of a blogger (3 mins)

Each person shares their picture and we decide together to give it a name, e.g. The Networker, The Obsessive

We group the different types by sticking the pictures on the wall with blu tac.

DSC_0038DSC_0035DSC_0036DSC_0039DSC_0037DSC_0034DSC_0033DSC_0032DSC_0025DSC_0031DSC_0026DSC_0030The EverymanDSC_0029DSC_0028DSC_0027DSC_0009DSC_0007DSC_0006DSC_0005DSC_0004DSC_0003DSC_0002DSC_0001

2. The Blogspot – What type of blogger are you?

People are split into groups of 2 and given information on 8 different case studies. This information includes a screenshot of the blog and basic stats, e.g. regularity of posts, no of posts, no of contributors, text from ‘about’ section….

People are asked to place each blog on a scale of how personal/impersonal it is and whether it is used to disseminate information or facilitate conversation. They are asked to consider whether the intentions of the blogger are the same as reality, and why the blogger might post as they do.

People are then asked to make suggestions for how one could group the bloggers.

The facilitator then shares one set of groupings (ours were educational, social, collaborative, profile) that may provide some insight (but with the qualification that this is just one model, not ‘the rules’). These are related to our set of case studies and the university-context and could be adapted for different organisations.

3. Making it real

Posters labelling the axis (eg. Personal on wall opposite Impersonal) on each of the four walls set out a ‘Blog Spot’ on the floor.

Participants are asked to retrieve their poster and stand where they would place their impression of a ‘blogger’ on the floor.

Participants are then asked to move to the position of where they would want to be, if they were to be a blogger. (In the last workshop the concentration changed from bottom left corner to much more spread out.)

4. Theory-building: Breaking down the barriers to blogging

People are split into groups of 3 or 4.

They are given a set of A4 cards which all have information on which relate to the challenges of blogging.

The group are asked to come up with a theory, and demonstrate that theory by arranging the cards in a pattern on the floor. (10-15mins)

Everyone apart from the group whose pattern is being discussed then have to interpret what the other group’s theory is. This is done for each pattern/group.

 

5. Discussion, Q + A

Depending on what issues are raised, we gave about 20 minutes to general discussion about why people don’t blog.  A lot of the time participants were just talking to each other. It helped to have a few current and one former blogger in the group as they could share experiences.

6. What next?

  • I am currently in the process of finishing some online resources that includes video interviews with 10 of the university’s (various) bloggers
  • There is a hand out that outlines the top 5 tips for blogging. Recommends highly following a programme like 23 things, which is a series of blogging related tasks.
  • Everyone is invited to contribute straight away to a group blog, about the workshop, about blogging. I posted pictures of each participant telling us what they learnt >>> This part gets very ‘metablogging’ whatever that means…


Open-space learning mini-blogging workshop

digitalnative
By On May 26, 2011 In Collaboration, Featured, Learning, Teaching with Technology With 1 Comment Permanent Link to Open-space learning mini-blogging workshopPermalink

I attended a one-day session at the Institute for Advanced Teaching and Learning, University of Warwick, to find out about using ‘open-space learning‘ techniques in workshops. Nick Monk and Jonathan Heron, who lead the session and have authored a book on Open-space Learning, were fantastic to work with.

The idea is that if you teach in large spaces you can be a lot more creative in the variety of activities that you use to engage your students. This is linked to the theory that different students have varied learning styles – such as auditory, kinesthetic and visual are the three main types.

A circle was used throughout the session to signal that we were all there to talk with each other, not to be talked at.

Open-space learning workshop

There is an excellent resource for people looking for fun activities available on their website; we tried lots of them out during the day.

In the afternoon we were given a group of students to run our workshop with.  I had six people to engage in a discussion about blogging for fifteen minutes. I decided to cram in a few different activities:

  • 4 mins to draw ‘A Blogger’
  • 4 mins discussing and sharing our results in a circle, sitting on the floor.  I pinned the pictures on the board and labelled them.
  • 2 mins to write down physical equivalents to ‘A Blog’ on pink post-its.
  • 4 mins to discuss in groups what activities were involved in producing the blog posts of the Bloggers/Blogs we had identified (I split the group into two and one group worked on the board with the pictures, and the other worked on another board with the post-its).
  • Ideally 5 mins to discuss together to discuss what activities were involved but we ran out of time.

The ColumnistThe BoreThe FashionistaThe GeekThe divulgerThe BroadcasterThe Digital NativeWhat is 'a blog' equivalent to?

I was trying to make the point that blogging is really a very varied practice. A blog is just the outcome of a whole range of activities, including:

  • Archiving
  • Researching
  • Conversing
  • Attending Events
  • Networking
  • Studying
  • Debating
  • Reflecting

I got to sit in on the other workshops that were tested out.  We all agreed it was a taxing, but illuminating exercise.  Constructive feedback included:

  • Time-keeping needs to be tightly managed. Activities need to be assigned a time so participants are clear about how long they should spend thinking
  • Even though the space is ‘unstructured’, the session still needs a clear structure. Think about ‘scaffolding’ activities so that there are levels of sophistication for certain games. Don’t bore them with an outline at the beginning but signpost throughout what they are doing and why.  Link activities together and display products of various activities on the wall.
  • Keep it fast-moving and engaging, don’t stay on activities for too long.
  • Use ‘openness and clarity’ as a guiding principle
  • Don’t be scared of the space. Push activities into the corners of the room.
  • Be aware that certain activities might alienate individuals for various reasons (I had someone who ‘didn’t like to draw’). Watch out for this, reassure them.  If people are particularly resistant, getting them to work in pairs is one-way to open them up.

They gave positive feedback too:

  • They like it when first names are used
  • Good to be inclusive and enthusiastic
  • They loved ‘embodied activities’, where they were asked to visualise abstract ideas through acting.
  • They liked being asked to employ empathy, thinking about things from a different perspective
  • Debate really got them going, so why not push this device?  Set up a game show or a trial.
  • Role-play can be very illuminating

They had some specific ideas for how I could develop my sessions which have got me thinking:

  • Project on the walls interesting examples of blogs
  • Link the types of ‘Blogger’ identified through the drawing activity to the examples projected on the walls
  • Act out different ‘Blogger’ personalities (the broadcaster, digital native, IT girl/columnist)

The whole day was a pretty intense learning experience, which kind of proved their point.  I was definitely engaged throughout!

The students shared some of their thoughts about lecturers using their techniques and why they liked it:

  • Creative, fun and active
  • The information ‘sinks in deeper’
  • Encourages pro-activity
  • Sharing thoughts student-to-student can be reassuring and empowering
  • More space, literally. Which means you can separate ideas, thoughts and arguments out when dealing with complex topics
  • Collaborative and social in contrast to loneliness of bookwork
  • Dialogic, which is important

Blogging is not broadcasting

comic
By On May 22, 2011 In Collaboration, Featured, Learning, The Internet With 3 Comments Permanent Link to Blogging is not broadcastingPermalink

Yesterday I was lucky enough to go to the Connected Generation unConference in London. Throughout the day I heard lots of interesting thoughts shared about blogging and it’s purpose for those who engage with young people online.

I wanted to share some key ideas that were shared in response to the seemingly simple question: Why Blog?

Blogging helps you learn

Whether taking an accredited course, or just teaching yourself new skills, conversations can often be a really useful way to learn.  I think yesterday’s unConference reminded me of that!

If you are lucky you might live, work or study with people who you can have those conversations with but many of us are more isolated than that.  Sharing your thoughts on a blog, and openly asking people to share their comments in reply, is one way of starting to initiate a wider range of conversations that might move your thinking on in many ways.

Whether it be that someone shares a link to useful resources on your blog, brings the subject up as a conversation topic when they next see you, or just disagrees with you citing a point of view you had not considered before, it is likely to get you thinking…

Formal education is not generally very encouraging of peer-supported learning and so sometimes, if you are studying for a course you might feel that there is no point – there are no marks awarded for sharing knowledge in this way and it might even hinder your competitive advantage!  This probably depends on how much you feel you have to learn from your fellow students but someone once said to me ‘the teacher always does better than the student’.  So even if you are the best in the class, and your blog is basically used as a learning resource, communicating your ideas through a blog will still help you too even if just as a revision exercise (the grateful praise of your fellow students will be an added bonus!).

Blogging helps you become a real person in the online world.

Katie Bacon, of Online Youth Outreach made the really good point in an earlier session that blogging helps you humanise your online persona.  It seems likely that we are going to have to interact and engage more and more online, not to the exclusion of face-to-face meetings, but to facilitate and encourage such face-to-face meetings.  Getting comfortable with having a professional presence online is not easy and it takes time but you need to be doing something online to help in that process of bedding down and blogging might be just the thing…

  1. Facebook comments or contributions to forums help in this too but they are soon buried.  Blogs last a lot longer.
  2. You are in control of your blog.  You can take down posts or amend them if you want.  You can also return to them later, or share links to posts for years  afterwards if you feel what you wrote remains relevant.
  3. You can say quite a lot in a blog post.  You can give a clear idea about what you are about, what you believe in, what you are passionate about and this is fundamental information to share if you want to build relationships and trust with people. This is not the same as sharing intimate details about your private life.


Blogging can help you make new connections

Some people start off encouraging people to blog by highlighting the instrumental outcomes of a better online profile, the potential of new job offers, and endless networking opportunities. While I think those are all definite benefits these ends do not have to be the focus.  This type of impact will not be instant and it will be subtle.

Besides, blogging takes a big investment of time and charting my reader stats has never proved very motivational for me!  (they are very low).  Numbers are not important. Sometimes the things you are talking about may only be relevant to one or two people but it might so useful to them that it is still worth it!

Tim Davies highlighted that he published his Masters dissertation because there was nothing else on the web on the same subject.  What information or experiences do you have that people would really benefit from hearing or knowing about?

Still stuck on ‘Why Not Blog’ ideas? Some responses:

  1. ‘I don’t have enough time’. It does take time but digital media is changing our working practices which means we have to reevaluate how much time we are spending on what and the order of our priorities. For a lot of people blogging pays off.    Think of it as an investment, you are building up an archive which you can return to repeatedly…
  2. ‘Blogging is for people who like to write (and I don’t like to write)’. This is often not true.  I don’t particularly like writing, I just do it because it is the most effective and efficient way to communicate information for me. I find that blogging is more for people who like to chat.
  3. ‘I am not an expert’. You don’t have to be an expert.  If you are not sure about something, or you are looking for advice on an issue just say so.  Not every blog post has to be super polished either.  Some pundits say the less conclusive a blog post the more people are likely to comment.  Think about how you would present your thoughts in a conversation…
  4. ‘I am scared of sharing’. Presenting anything in public is scary. Most of us don’t particularly like standing up in front of a group of people to say something but we force ourselves when it is necessary for the good of the group/community. The same is true here.  To get over your nerves be clear about what you want to say, who you want to say it too and why you want to say it. Then if something uncomfortable does happen – like someone writes a comment vehemently disagreeing with you in an aggressive way – you can be philosophical about it.  People are not always going to share your opinions after all…
  5. ‘No one cares what I had for breakfast’. People who don’t use Twitter ALWAYS say that all people do on Twitter is talk about what they had for breakfast.  I don’t think I have ever talked about that or heard anyone else talk about it. You don’t have to talk about it.  Blog about something you care about or think is important and chances are someone will care too.

In an early session lead by Tim Davies looking at ‘Moving Beyond Risk’ he made a great point: the risks involved in engaging online need to be assessed and managed so that we (and our children) can become resilient.  They should not stop us getting involved.

Ok, ok.  I want to blog.  But How?

- WordPress gives you lots of options
- Posterous makes it super, super easy (you can just email text to make posts)
- Blogger is popular too

The ‘how’ bit is the easy part, as long as you really are sure you want to.  There are lots of different platforms you can use to set up your blog. It is going to have to be up to you which one you chose…and always remember if you are unsure about something you can always Google it.

‘How can I do it better?’ is a slightly more interesting question.  Blogging is not just about writing posts, in the same way conversation is not just about making speeches.  You are going to have to find a way to tell people about your posts for one thing.

Tim Davies said he found it helpful to follow a program of 30 challenges to a better blog.

Inspirational bloggers?

I am currently developing a workshop for academic researchers to discuss this topic.  I will keep you updated with how this develops, but to end this mammoth post I just wanted to highlight a few of the people who really inspired me to think more about blogging:

Perhaps you have people who have inspired you? Please feel free to share in the comments : ).  Just started a blog?  Tell us about it!

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