"Weblogs as Deictic Systems: Centripetal, Centrifugal, and Small-World Blogging" - a blog by Collin Brooke

In the continuous effort to obtain research concerning the use of multimodal compositions in the classroom, I recently investigated Collin Brooke's blog Weblogs as Deictic Systems: Centripedal, Centrifugal, and Small-World Blogging. As part of his investigation, Brooke looks at the increasing number of technological innovations and social softwares and how their implementation in the classroom can change the dynamics of the learning environment.

What particularly interested me about Brooke's study was his post entitled "Classrooms, networks, systems." In this segment, the author discusses the classroom as a "network of knowledge" and describes the teaching practices therein as being "embodied in documents that [circulate] throughout departments and disciplines as well." Furthermore, Brooke describes the classroom setting as being "highly porous space" in which many ideas easily come and go based on the instructor's discretion. The post continues to point out the sociable nature of the classroom setting, saying “It’s no accident, given this context, that one of the primary uses to which technology is put in such classrooms is the building of community. Chat spaces, MUDs and MOOs, bulletin boards, listserves—there are any number of applications that predate the development of “social software” which can themselves serve social functions.”

As Brooke works to legitimize the teaching value of these many sociable alternatives to hardcore social software, he focuses specifically upon the use of blogs in classroom settings. He notes Steven Krause’s criticism of blogs (as part of Krause’s essay “When Blogging Goes Bad: A Cautionary Tale about Blogs, Email Lists, Discussion, and Interaction”), which details a disappointing teaching experience that the author of that essay had after incorporating a blogging environment into his classroom assignments. Because of this upsetting incident, Krause states, “we shouldn’t substitute blogs for other electronic writing tools that foster discussion and interactive writing, particularly email lists, commonly known as ‘listserves.’” Unsatisfied with this total dismissal of blogs, Brooke focuses his argument on clarifying Krause’s statement: “We shouldn’t expect from blogs the same kinds of discussion and interactive writing we associate with other electronic writing tools.” Brooke admits that while the difference in Krause’s statement and his more inclusive revision is subtle, it’s also relevant: “This observation, that weblogs are not as effective as listserves at doing what listserves do, leads productively to the question of what blogs qua blogs can accomplish for us in our classrooms.” Instead of shutting down all hope for the usefulness of blogs in the classroom setting, Brooke rewords the proclamation so as to encourage further investigation into this particular technology’s relevance.


Blogs as an Arena for Multimodality:

Brooke’s revision of Krause’s original complaint invited me to consider useful ways to implement blogs as teaching tools. Having worked with blogs, I can definitely see some avenues for this particular environment to function as a teaching resource.

When considering multimodality in the classroom, what better way is there to present original multimodal compositions to a class than a blog? Using an online environment, teachers may develop full lesson plans as blog postings and can allow students access to texts, pictures, videos, links, and even music. Furthermore, in presenting materials through this method, instructors encourage additional (and efficient) communication from students. By building a blog correctly, teachers can give students access to a public discussion forum on the posted material via the Comments section under each post. Also, through the template options for some blog publishers, it’s possible to include an email link which allows readers to send specific postings electronically to others, if they should have the desire.

To echo Brooke’s addition to Krause’s original thought, weblogs function as a totally different resource that can supplement listserves, MOOs, wikis, etc. in bringing more information and alternative means of communication to students.