But I want my students to practice their public presence, much in the spirit of Renaissance sprezzatura (but also as a practical matter of learning to be more publicly oriented when posting online).
Here is a teacher's short video about how audience gives educational technology rigor. I heartily agree. Watch the last minute or so, starting at 2:13:
Katie McKnight Podcast Series #9: Where is the Rigor in Educational Technology? from TeachHub.com on Vimeo.
Okay, if we want our blogging to address real audiences, we need to avoid only speaking to ourselves. How is this done? Well, by avoiding "in-speak":
The Problem of "In-speak"
Whenever groups of people start working together, they build some common experience around what they do together. In the case of school classes, students and their instructor quickly build a common set of experiences and conversations around specific texts, topics, and events (such as classroom discussions).
The downside to this arrangement is that the very thing that can build a sense of unity among fellow group members is what can distance other prospective audience members. This is the problem of "in-speak."
Avoiding In-Speak
The way around in-speak is to test what one says as one drafts a blog post: Would others know to what I am referring when I use shorthand for a text? Would they understand terms that we as a group have grown together to understand? May I need to explain, briefly, specific references, texts, or terms, so that a general reader can understand them?
Students should use phrases like "in the textbook" -- they should refer to the text with enough information that others could recognize it or find it. If there is a link to something about which one is talking, then students should provide that link.
A good test is the standalone test. If someone doing a Google search came across this post, would they have enough context to understand what I am talking about? We don't assume context online; we must provide it. Later visitors to the blog will not be class members, and they certainly won't have a syllabus on hand, or any sense of what just happened in the classroom the day before the post went up.
Semi-Public Academic Blogging
Blogging can take learning out of the classroom in powerful ways, separating those academic discussions from that very temporary community that every class of students is. Blog posts (even those done specifically for a specific class which only lasts a few months) have a life and a reach beyond the week or term in which they are written. They are semi-permanent, and semi-public.
I say our blogging is "semi-public" because we do not actively advertise our blog or seek to grow its readership in any sustained way (as bloggers would do for public organizations or for business purposes). But even without chasing down a public, a public still comes to us. Blog posts remain, and they get found and read. I consistently draw upon my past students' work, linking to their posts -- and this means the work of students from 10 years ago, not just last semester. But the posts are also found through search bots and come up in general web searches.
Building One's Ethos
Rhetoricians talk about three major persuasive appeals: logos (the appeal of reasoning and the argument or message itself); pathos (the appeal of emotion); and ethos (the appeal of one's character). Just as those in the Renaissance were conscious about "self-fashioning" back in the 15th or 16th century, so in the 21st we should consciously self-fashioning.
Every time we post something online we are building our public persona. Youngsters stretching their online communication abilities often forget this, putting up content via social media that they come to regret when, with a little maturity, they realize that more than just their clique of friends view what they post.
Whenever I do a blog post, I think in terms of how it is constructing my public persona, my overall persuasiveness, or my "ethos." People talk about "brand building" today. I think that it is a bit reductive to refer to people as brands. We are not really selling ourselves, except metaphorically. But it is certainly worthwhile to cultivate a respectable, even interesting, public persona. This can be done, in part, through one's blog posts.
Your Online Presence
I talk about the importance of students building their online presence while they are in college in a blog post from some years ago ("Dear Students: Don't Let College Unplug Your Future"), telling the story of how I ended selecting a student for a position based not on her resume, but on her blog. Something to think about. That very blog post is an example of what I was saying. Another professor found this post, included it in an anthology, and now I routinely have students writing to me who read this post. It got a broader reach, quite unanticipated. If I had realized how often it would be read, I am certain I would have dialed back my tone in that piece (which is a bit confrontational and sarcastic).
Even if no one ever did read my students blog posts in this course blog, this kind of writing gives them practice in thinking about a broader public. That kind of writing makes you just a bit more accountable, just a bit more attentive. A broader public is one worth writing toward, even if in the short run it will only be fellow classmates and the instructor or read and comment.
Tips
- Read your blog post in "preview" mode and see if you have possible errors of spelling or bad visual layout. That will improve the design and readability of your post and make it better for attracting audiences.
- Check your tone and your vocabulary. You don't have to be formal, but are you only speaking in a way that your close friends appreciate?
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