Katie Livingston-Vale, Ed.D.
Team Leader, Educational Technology Consultants
IS&T Academic Computing
Online journals called "weblogs" or "blogs" are now being employed in MIT courses to teach students how to reflect on experiences and how to share their reflections in a written form with classmates, teachers, and other audiences. This article describes in detail the use of weblogs in a freshman advising seminar during the Fall 2005 semester and also points to other uses of blogs for educational purposes at MIT.
If after reading the article you would like to use a blog in your MIT class, be advised that technical support for class blogs is now provided by the educational technology consultants at MIT Academic Computing. The following services will be available, on a per project basis:
First-year students at MIT have the option of enrolling in a freshman advising seminar, a weekly class taught by an academic advisor. Members of IS&T Academic Computing have been involved in teaching some of these subjects over the last few years; this past semester Dr. Katie Livingston-Vale and Dr. Philip Long co-taught a new advising seminar centering on the topic of blogs - with help from associate advisor Vivian Leung. The class was offered under the auspices of the Edgerton Center.
Because weblogs, or blogs, have become so popular - Harper's Index states that a new blog is created every second! - the advisors thought they might be a useful tool in helping new MIT students reflect on their transition to the Institute. Here is the class description that appeared in the summer of 2005 in the advising handbook:
SP.727
Blogs, Diaries, Journals and Portfolios: Reflecting on Your First Semester Here
Learn how to use different multimedia tools such as blogging software, e-portfolios, and photo-editing programs to create and maintain an online journal. We'll also examine specific examples of online and traditional diarists, and discuss ways in which blogs and portfolios can help you think about your experiences inside and outside of the classroom. During our meetings you will create an entry that looks back over your classes or events of the previous week. Because MIT is such a fast-paced environment, many students feel that their lives are just "happening" without any time to actually process the events. This seminar offers you a unique opportunity to take the time for reflection. After taking this seminar, we hope that you will continue to practice reflection throughout your MIT career - and beyond.
Six students, five female and one male, signed up for the class. It came as something of a surprise to the advisors that four of the six already had blogs. Several blog and other Internet content companies - including Xanga, Facebook, and MySpace - have been marketing heavily to high school students, and these freshmen were interested in keeping blogs as a way to stay in touch with friends and family back home.
Because Livingston-Vale and Long wanted the students to feel comfortable writing about potentially personal topics, they also set up a private blog site for the class using a pilot Academic Computing blog service. This MovableType-based blog allowed students to choose whether to make their posts readable to the rest of the class or only to the instructors and associate advisor. For the most part, students used their Xanga blogs, which are world-readable.
At the start of each class, the group chatted about the events of the week, and enjoyed snacks provided by the associate advisor - an integral part of most advising seminars. Next, the advisors provided a list of blogs for the students to view as inspiration for the day. These included:
After the lecture portion of each class, the students were given time to compose a blog entry for the week. While some students blogged a few times a week outside of class, others relied on the in-class time to reflect on the previous few days.
Toward the end of the semester, Livingston-Vale and Long gave the students directed exercises and links provided by the Academic Resource Center to help them plan how they would get their work done and manage their time through exams. Each week the advisors reviewed the students' blog entries and commented on them.
The process of presenting blogs and reading student blogs enabled Livingston-Vale and Long to get to know their advisees in a way not previously possible. Students who normally might have put on a brave face about their trepidation at being so far from home admitted or at least alluded to this in their blogs. Students who felt overwhelmed by a subject but were embarrassed to ask for help seemed more likely to come clean about it in their blogs. The advisors no longer had to wait until fifth-week flags were issued to have an idea of whether or not a student was struggling.
Reading blog postings also gave the advisors glimpses into student lives that they had never had before - the social norms in particular dormitories and living groups, issues relating to substance use among peers, and new insights as to how students manage their time. Even if this class is not offered next year, Livingston-Vale and Long plan to ask their future advisees for the address of their blogs. The role of an academic advisor is to help students learn how to be successful at MIT. Based on the experience of SP.727, blogs are proving to be a vital tool in doing that well.
Other educational web sites at MIT that use blogs include:
To enquire further about blog technology or/and to request a blog-enabled web site for your MIT class, contact IS&T's educational technology consultants.
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