Blog Community Analysis

As the influence of Vygotsky and Piaget’s emphases on social contexts for learning has grown, instructors have sought a sense of community in the classroom.  Until recently, I considered dialogue the key to this effort.  Two years ago, however, I moved to a boarding school where I live in a dorm with two other families and 35 teenage girls, eat with a couple hundred neighbors, and walk between my home, my classroom, the dining hall, the post office, and the faculty children’s playground.  Because residential faculty consciously cultivate community, I am now more intensely aware of my own definition of the phrase; I have come to understand it in terms of role-fulfillment and interaction.  In my experience, creating community entails individuals’ being themselves in a social context and finding a way for their actions, beliefs, and interests to contribute to a shared goal.  Dialogue plays a part in such a contribution, but it is not the only signifier of community.

Garrison and Vaughan point out that the “purpose of the community should determine how it is defined and developed” (17); in transferring my concept of community to the classroom, I must refigure my previous assumption that student discussions not only develop but define a sense of community, partly because my experience says I should, but also because a class’s shared goal—learning through cognitive engagement—requires more from its community than dialogue.  Garrison and Vaughan’s discussion of a community of inquiry is helpful in this reconsideration.  As I reflect (anecdotally) on classes with a sense of community, I discover that in them 1) students felt that their individual interests, strengths, and even weaknesses became known; 2) students’ shared experiences provided a common language and reference point; 3) students felt that they offered something valuable to the class, whether  insightful comments in discussion, helpful peer review, accurate notes, reliable understanding of assignments, or other assets; and 4) no matter their relationships outside of class, students developed a shared identity as a class. To foster community, we instructors can present assignments that allow students to develop and display interests and to uncover and foster their individual roles in the classroom community.
     To understand the potential of assignments of this type, I turn to my own experience as a graduate student, specifically to a blog assignment that seeks to create both of these opportunities. In it, students create blogs in which they review articles of their choice. The instructions for the blog posts do not mention reading classmates’ blogs, but the instructor provides their addresses. Blogs are a popular tool for blended and distance courses because they are free, offer the possibility of an authentic audience, allow ownership, and offer the chance for students to enact their personalities and interests. This assignment in particular qualifies as Garrison and Vaughan’s “ideal educational transaction” because the blog’s public nature and comment feature offer the possibility of “social interaction and collaboration,” which “shapes and tests meaning” so that “core concepts are constructed and assimilated in a deep and meaningful manner” (14).  Put more simply, interaction with others allows meaning-making that leads to real learning. 

Source: http://zombiepedagogy.blogspot.com/2012/06/blog-post-4.html

An informal review of comments in these blogs shows the level of community-creation through dialogue.  Many students posted comments to their classmates’ blogs, with a few students offering feedback systematically, a handful of others posting regularly but without systematic coverage, and the remaining students posting only in response to comments on their own blog or not at all.  The nature of the comments varies: some agree with or thank the blogger, some offer commentary on the content, some ask for more information, and some offer further evidence for the blogger’s position.  Few contradict the blogger.  In some cases these comments do represent community-making.  For instance, in the commentary following Mark Blaauw-Hara’s post on June 5, 2012, Eric Sentell agrees and offers further support, Angela Dadak (“amd”) suggests a next step, and Catrina Mitchum simply expresses camaraderie and thanks.  Because all three of these commenters truly interact with Blaauw-Hara (they acknowledge his position and contribute something personal or original), they likely develop a feeling of personal relationship.  It is important to note, however, that these dialogic exchanges show the potential for community-creation through dialogue; in most cases, comments are sparse, and many seem more obligatory than spontaneous.  As such, the fact that a classmate took the time to comment may do more for a sense of community than the content.

Although dialogue is only a small part of what establishes community, the blog assignment builds community in other ways.  In my understanding of community, individuals establish their own roles, which vary (i.e., skill at dialogue is not always one’s primary contribution).  In this blog assignment, blog posts help establish such identities.  For example, Angela Dadak’s focus on students for whom English is a second language helps define her role as the class’s L2 specialist whose input is especially valuable regarding these students' cultural or linguistic concerns.  Further, because the blogs allowed inquiry that was “purposeful, but flexible,” allowing students “to explore unintended paths of interest,” they help create a community of inquiry under the terms outlined by Garrison and Vaughan (15).  As such, personal relationships are not the most important signifier that a community has been created.

The comments, too, establish roles of individuals within the community.   For instance, some commenters ask questions and seek to learn from classmates, some seem obliged to offer comments as good citizens, some post only when strong reactions compel them, and some use their comments as actions in pursuit of their own learning goals. Several students often posted their responses in the form of audio recordings, and a May 30th, 2012, comment from Sarah Spangler revealed why: “Hope you don't mind another audio comment; Trina, Meghan, and I are attempting to pull together some research on audio commentary. :)”. Through such comments, Spangler and others helped establish personas as active researchers and experimenters with new technologies.
      Similarly, the comments allowed students to expand their knowledge about areas of interest. In this course, student comments on developmental composition, multi-modal composition, and other high-interest topics appeared frequently. For example, Eric Sentell reveals his own interest in trying new ways to provide feedback when he responds to Catrina Mitchum: “I studied instructor feedback for my M.A. thesis, but … focused on written response. I read a little about audio response, but I didn't consider it again until Cheri's recent presentation at ODU. She convinced me to give it a try, and your review solidifies that decision as well as offering some good ideas for *how* to do it.” As students know one another and feel known for their individual interests, I see a sense of community growing, even if no artifact proves it.
     Thus, the potential of the blog as a community-builder is twofold: to foster dialogue and to offer a flexible way for students to explore and expose their interests.  To pursue these affordances further, an instructor could consider ways to push students to engage with one another’s posts.  An increase in obligatory comments might make students feel a greater sense of audience, but required comments are unlikely to create meaningful engagement.  A better approach might be to require students to write full posts that respond to, build from, or otherwise engage with a classmate's post.  These engagement posts’ form might be less restricted than the original set.  For instance, Angela Dadak could carry out the suggestion she makes to Mark Blaauw-Hara regarding a more developed rewrite of Pensky’s article.  Or Eric Sentell could reflect on his Master’s thesis and then research audio feedback, as inspired by Catrina Mitchum’s post. Alternatively, students could choose a classmate’s article to read fully and write about, acknowledging not only the article’s content but also that of the original blog post. 

                  An instructor seeking to build community should not consider assignments in isolation.  What students do in each class venue both grows from and adds to what they do in the others. Backchannels and social networks within and outside of the course platform contribute to a sense of community. These tools establish what Garrison and Vaughan call social presence, one of the three types of presence required for a community of inquiry.  They write that “[s]tudents in a community of inquiry must feel free to express themselves openly in a risk-free manner” so that they “develop the personal relationships necessary to commit to, and pursue, intended academic goals and gain a sense of belonging to the community” (19).   In addition to these, lesson planning that includes group work and other student-driven activities create a situation in which “[p]articipant knowledge and expertise is shared and developed through discourse and collaborative activities” (Garrison and Vaughan 17)  so that "academic interests…give purpose and shape to the inquiry process” (17-18).  As we design course assignments and choose course tools, we must not be so dazzled by the idea of community that we fail to put learning goals first; pursuit of a common goal is the lynchpin of community.

                  Jean-Luc Nancy emphasizes exposure of our “being-in-common” as a defining characteristic of community (Qtd in Amy 111), and Garrison and Vaughan insist that “interaction is essential for both a community of inquiry and the higher educational experience” (16).  In distance learning, we should find ways to expose students’ individual experiences of a course so that others can encounter them.  That interaction—not strictly dialogue resulting from it—develops community. 

Eric Sentell.  Weblog comment. Teaching Writing From a Distance.  Twfdsu12.blogspot.com, 11, June 2012. Web.  16 June 2012.

Garrison, D. Randy and Norman D. Vaughan. Blended Learning in Higher Education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008.

Sarah. Weblog comment. Zombie Pedagogy. ZombiePedagogy.blogspot.com, 30 May 2012. Web.

9 June 2012.

Weblog comments. Zombie Pedagogy. ZombiePedagogy.blogspot.com, 5 June 2012. Web.

9 June 2012.