The crux of Krause's comments was that the teacher needs to not only demonstrate how to use a blog but explain what the blog is used for. With our class he did not do much of that, other than to say, post comments and leave links.
If Krause's contention was that the instructor needs to guide the students through the blogging process, I disagree. What I have done for two semesters now is show the students how to use a blog as an online journal. I show them how to sign it and create a blog to use for my composition class. As we have many other assignments to cover in pre-collegiate comp, we don't have much time to talk about the blog until mid-term and the end of the course.
Despite the limiting intruction and discussion of blogs, the results were fantastic. There were photos, drawings, art, comments, sarcasm, criticism of readings, links, everything one could imagine in a blog--most of which we never talked about doing in class.
Explanation? Some students already had great technology skills from MySpace or other sites. Some new bloggers liked the assignment. Now of course, this does not mean that these students will continue to blog after the course is over. Most, I think, will not. This instructor, however, continues to blog, moreso during vacation, as he is doing now on blogger. com.
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