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How to evaluate student blogs

1/25/2013

5 Comments

 
While researching this idea, I spent a lot of time reflecting on my past use of student discussion boards and blogs.  In my classroom, using these tools has always been a flop.  Nevertheless, I realize that it is MY failing, not a failing on the part of my students.  I have done exactly that of which I accuse my students: By failing to prepare, I prepared to fail.  As Julie Meloni says in the blog Integrating, Evaluating, and Managing Blogging in the Classroom, “As with any assignment, students are likely to follow your lead with regards to valuing its overall importance.  If you forget the blog exists, so will they—and I wouldn’t particularly blame them."

So why have I allowed this to occur?  I think that time management is a serious issue.  I have viewed blogs as an additional assignment, rather than a way to bring writing that is more traditional into the 21st century.  Therefore, instead of replacing in-class writing assignments with blogs or discussion boards, I have just added them on and thus I begin to run out of time.

Another problem has been the method of evaluating the blogs.  How does one truly evaluate (and grade) what is a reflection of the beliefs and musings of another person?  I prefer short and simple evaluations when having to grade so many items.  The problem I have had is that the rubrics I have typically found are similar to the one found on THIS website:

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Not to say that this is too complicated, but it does entail multiple steps with different points for each criteria.  Multiple steps for multiple blogs for multiple students plus math equals a LOT of time.  I admire this professor’s commitment, but since time management is my biggest issue, I feel that I would fall short.

However, another of the posts that I found on ProfHacker by Mark Sample talked about how he assigned and evaluated student blogs.  In the blog post A Rubric for Evaluating Student Blogs, Sample shares my concerns for time management, saying “But when you have 15 or 25 posts per week, per class, how do you grade them all?  How do you let students know what kind of work you value?--And what kind of work they should likewise value?  Assessing the enormous number of posts on the class blog is challenging, to say the least.” Consequently, his rubric is short and simple:
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I like this rubric more than the previous example, but it does not address the language skills that I look for as a French and English/Language Arts teacher.  It also does not address the need for authentic and real interaction amongst students.  As stated by Konrad Glogowski in his blog entry Towards Reflective BlogTalk, "I find that for so many of my students [sic] blogging often becomes a race to publish, to write entries and receive comments.  (Most of them measure the success of their blog by the number of comments they receive, and the content of the comment is often not as important as the mere fact that it is there).  They rarely look critically at their own writing, preferring instead to judge their own work by the traffic that it attracts to their blog." This reflects the current social media trends, where we “like” a post on Facebook, or retweet something on Twitter, instead of actually commenting and engaging with the original poster.  It is through these interactions that real growth and learning occurs.

This lack has resulted in the following rubric:
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Resources
Glogowski, K. (2008, Feb 04). Towards reflective BlogTalk [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://www.teachandlearn.ca/blog/2008/02/04/towards-reflective-blogtalk/

Meloni, J. (2009, Aug 13). Integrating, Evaluating, and Managing Blogging in the Classroom [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/integrating-evaluatingmanaging-blogging-in-the-classroom/22626

Nixon, B. (2009, Apr). Public relations matters. Retrieved from http://publicrelationsmatters.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/blog-rubric.pdf

Profhacker. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/

Sample, M. (2010, Sept 27). A rubric for evaluating student blogs [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/a-rubric-for-evaluating-student-blogs/27196

5 Comments
Tara Whittington link
1/25/2013 10:49:51 pm

I really appreciate all of the resources you provided in your blog. I teach math and find myself overwhelmed by the prospect of trying to get the students to transfer the math language to writing and have only thought about adding it in addition to the things we already do instead of replacing some of the activities. I will now think about it in a different way.

I like your final rubric that you came up with and I am wondering what level of students you will be using this with? I think that some of the language in the rubric will still be difficult for lower level students in a French 1 course or a lower level English course. Have you thought about how you will explain this to them or what you will do so that they can understand what is expected of them? It might be a good idea to give them a very detailed first assignment when they start to blog so that it walks them through step by step. Then, like taking to training wheels off the bike, pull back the help so they can do it on there own.

Reply
Felicia Belcher
1/27/2013 12:52:55 pm

We have found similar resources for creating a rubric for blog posting. I am glad to see that you included grammar, usage and mechanics as one of your categories as I did as well. I didn't find my examples that included what I think is a very important category for this type of rubric. One of my biggest worries with blog posting and commenting is the language, grammar, and mechanics from the students. I have watched my varsity cheerleaders who are 11th and 12th graders type and write just as if they are texting or talking to their peers, basically forgetting how to compose correctly. They have become too comfortable with abbreviations that they forget when writing for a purpose. Have you had this problem with your high school students?

Reply
Angela Burgess
2/3/2013 12:25:56 am

Tara, I took the language for my rubric from the writing rubric that I currently use with my 10th grade Lit students. I teach on-level Lit, not Honors, and have found that using consistent language even when the rubrics change is beneficial.

While I could envision using this rubric with my AP French students, I would have to be very thoughtful about using it with my French 1 students. I prefer to assess only what is in French, not English. I feel like a true blog in French will lead to me assessing the translation provided by Google, not the language skills of my students.

Reply
Angela Burgess
2/3/2013 12:28:38 am

Felicia, yes. I have that problem all the time from my Lit students. I just keep repeating that anything that they turn in for assessment in an academic setting should use academic language. To me, that means real words, real verbs, correct punctuation, etc. I've seen some improvement, but still not as much as I'd like.

Reply
Nihal Singh link
4/29/2019 12:13:39 am

Nice article to evaluate a blog. It is very informative article. Thanks for sharing.

Reply



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    Author

    Angela Burgess is a high school French and Lit teacher, as well as an Instructional Technology Specialist.  She is also  understandably a Francophile and technophile. She obtained her M.Ed. in Instructional Technology from Kennesaw State University in May 2014.

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