Jabiz Raisdana – Authentic Student Blogging: Empowering Student Voice in the Social Media Age

Do teachers have a responsibility to guide students to deeper and more thoughtful spaces for learning and self-expression?

Key Questions and Comments:

• (06:08) I’ve really liked this idea of having a ‘space’ on the internet that I could call my own. […] I can’t help, as a middle school English teacher, realize that my kids, my students need this kind of space.
• (15:20) Many times, student blogs are dull and boring. How do you encourage the creation of authentic spaces for students to reach their potential?
• (17:16) I think one of the hardest things that I’ve had to face as a teacher is “How do you create that space of ‘expected, but not dictated’?”
• (22:34) There’s certainly a different between blogging for the teacher and blogging for the world. Jabiz, do you get responses from people around the world to your students’ blogs? And how do you control that, how do you protect that? Or does it need to be protected?
• (26:23) One of the things, Jabiz, that I love about this community that you’re building is that you’re […] thinking about sustaining it. I wonder what that looks like in the second year, and the third year, and then the fourth year so that blogging becomes a habit and not a series of events?
• (30:32) I’m dealing with college students and I tell them to think about the difference between an ‘audience’ and a ‘public.’ An audience is passive and you broadcast to them. A public can comment right away, or they could link to you, or they could dispute what you have to say, or they might even join you in some sort of collective action.
• (32:55) What do you guys think are some of the advantages of having a space that lets you work through your writing, and then sharing that?
• (42:56) So often at school […] we create these “tract homes” for students that they abandon nine weeks later: blogging as a unit. So, in seventh grade, they make a “home.” In eighth grade, they make a “home.” It was never their home, it was just a house they had to sleep in for a while until the teacher told them they could leave.
• (47:10) ‘I’m not sure how many people would want a personal space that, later, employers would see.’ There’s this idea of learning to live in this public space, and then there’s also the issue of digital footprint. How do you deal with that with your students, Jabiz?
• (53:04) If we want our students to make rhetorical choices–we want them to choose what they write about, what they don’t write about, when they write, and when they don’t–sometimes we have to let that choice be to not participate in online public spaces.
• (57:58) It does seem that Jabiz succeeds in empowering his students to act in ways that students–who are not heavily aware of ‘the teacher wants me to do this’–are able to act. Any tips on how you are able to do that, other than just your personality?

View the Conversation
During the broadcast, the conversation also took place on Twitter using the hashtag #connectedlearning.

Guests for this webinar included:

• Jabiz Raisdana (Guest Speaker): Jabiz is currently an English teacher at the United World College of Southeast Asia in Singapore. As an amateur writer, musician, photographer, filmmaker and all around provocateur, he is persistently preaching the gospel of sharing and open expression for students and teachers alike. An intense and passionate storyteller, Jabiz has a story to tell to and with you. You can Follow him on Twitter at @intrepidteacher.
• Howard Rheingold (Moderator)
• Alan Levine
• Alec Couros
• Bud Hunt
• Jim Groom

Resources for this webinar:

• Jabiz’s introductory blog post for this webinar, “For Attention”
• Follow-up post: “What It Might Be- Authentic Student Blogging”
• Post from Jabiz’s Intrepid Teacher blog: “Give a Kid a Blog”
• “The Question Should Be: Why Are You *Not* Blogging” by Alan Levine
• Harkness table: large, oval table used in a style of teaching where students sit at the table with their teachers
• deviantART: the world’s largest online art community (one of Jabiz’s students uses a blog to showcase her art)
• The Atlantic: The Writing Revolution
• Ongoing debate about academic writing on TheAtlantic.com
• Will Richardson- Connective Writing
• Student’s post on ‘Mr. Eraser Head’ spawned expansion of character and story
• Another student uses a blog to showcase her art and poetry
• Some students are very conscious of their blog’s design
• Other students may use blogs for sharing pre-existing offline content
• DS106: an open, online course around Digital Storytelling