Pedagogical Tool Review:

Teaching Writing Using Blogs, Wikis, and other Digital Tools
by Richard Beach, Chris Anson, Lee-Ann Kastman Breuch, and Thom Swiss

As the unit I’d like to teach revolves around wikis and blogs, I wanted to find a resource that not only included overviews of these technologies, but also other digital tools that can be used powerfully in the classroom. I also was hoping to find a resource that included theoretical underpinnings that would warrant their use in education. Teaching Writing Using Blogs, Wikis, and other Digital Tools seemed to fit the bill though it required a closer look if I’d like to use it as the actual text for a workshop I’ll be teaching soon. In light of the length of the title of my chosen tool, and given that it was written by multiple authors (not just Richard Beach), I will refer to this tool as “Teaching Using Digital Tools” and the voice of the book as “Beach.” I hope his colleagues will forgive me.

Since “Teaching Using Digital Tools” was written by four authors who were compiling observations from other teachers using digital technologies in their classrooms with actual students, meant that this volume was truly a collaborative effort on multiple levels. Having just read Scott Warnock’s Teaching Writing Online, there was a similar resource to compare it to.

Whereas Warnock shares his own experiences with digital tools, Beach looks at the practices of many instructors. Warnock book’s strengths are in helping teachers shift their f2f techniques and traditional thinking to online delivery tools, providing teachers with chapter-by-chapter prepping heuristics and offering summative guidelines along the way. Beach’s book is probably a good resource to take Warnock’s foundation to another level. This is because Beach offers so many specifics and examples of tools and contexts that an instructor who has already made the shift in their thinking toward e-learning would probably be looking for.

Warnock examines the instructor’s core approach to teaching and suggests types of tools that might work within that approach (CMS, email, the internet, the phone—and “Fancier Options:” Audio/Visual, Virtual Worlds, Games, etc). Beach speak more specifically about the effective use of searches, digital, note-taking tools (and lists several on page 30), blogs, feed aggregators, delicious.com, Google Reader, how to locate and annotate images, online mind-mapping software (41), and storage tools—just in one chapter alone (25).

The introduction encapsulates some of the common strategies the authors have observed from other instructors in how effective digital writing pedagogy is used-- such as guiding students to seeing “the purposes for using digital writing tools,” their social use, and benefits to reflection and developing a voice. Chapter one answers “Why Use Digital Writing to Engage Students?” Beach makes a case that digital tools have the potential of engaging online students, which will lead to more effective learning: “We believe that one of the larger purposes of using digital writing tools is to encourage students to learn to voice their ideas on their own initiative” (13). An illustration diagrams four types or phases of writing-related tasks: teacher- vs. student-initiated writing, and writing for a classroom assignment vs. writing for students’ peers or even a global audience. Each subsequent chapter will connect how its content relates back to these four phases in this diagram, with a goal to shoot to encourage Phase IV or Self-Initiated Writing as Beach believes it leads to increased writing, which in turn leads to improved writing.

As I looked at diagram more closely, it bears an uncanny resemblance to a 2001 article I read for ENGL 820 by Coomey and Stevenson, who describe a similar diagramming of tasks.

The end of chapter one explains a code readers will see throughout the book: “( @ = ).” Whenever the reader sees this code, the topic that follows the “=” sign indicates a topic that is further explored on a “Resource Wiki Website” developed especially to support the book. Beach practices what he preaches by expanding the educational material into the digital realm and expanding the conversation—something that Cheryl Ball maybe should have tried when she wrote “Show, Not Tell.”

The book covers technologies such as blogs, digital audio and video productions,”Designing and Editing Digital Writing, “Using Digital Tools for Formative and Summative Evaluation of Writing,” and “Fostering Reflection through E-Portfolios,” but offers the reader many examples of each. Again comparing it with Warnock, Beach’s chapter six on blogging covers teachers’ discussions on their specific experiences with blogging in the classroom (good and bad) and gives the reader a sense of when it is more successful and when it’s not (117). Warnock’s chapter on conversation focuses on student interaction merely through discussion boards, yet makes a passing reference to blogging under the topic of “Journals and Notebooks Online” (103) and peer review (112).

Beach goes on to nuance the use of “Blogging as Social Conversation,” and move student conversations into Phase Two writing (from the diagram), the public arena. This section is quite detailed as it connects the dots of student writing to global conversation and how this can impact the tone and form of writing students employ in their work (121). Beach also covers other types of blogs such as fictional blogging (where the writers take on a character’s voice), micro-blogging (using tools such as Twitter), classroom vs. individual blogs, educator blogs and cover a host of alternative platforms and sites (124).

The last chapter models what the book has been suggesting—that these tools can be used to develop conversations outside of the classroom and develop reflective writing practices. Beach invites the reader to “Join Online Communities Devoted to Teaching Digital Writing,” and “View and create Online Teacher Cases.” Here is where the accompanying wiki takes on another role for the reader/user, continued professional development.

“Teaching Using Digital Tools” is well-structured and quite useful with so many specifics. Similar to Warnock, Beach has a summarizing paragraph at the end of each chapter, to assist in quick retrieval of information. However, the power of this tool is in the accompanying wiki and how it ties in with various points of the text. The authors have created a space for further discussion and elaboration and are modeling what they believe to be useful. If a person, who doesn’t have the book, stumbles onto the webpage, they can utilize this information without having to purchase the book.

One thing that struck me as odd or ironic is that in spite of the fact the authors are still adding content to this wiki, and inviting commentary, there are not very many comments from the visitors. This could be because the readers are instructors who are occupied with their own courses or because the content is clear and requires little more to be added. It may be because I haven’t seen the authors responding to the comments that are there. It’s a good question which may point out a flaw in the content or sense of audience.

Conclusion:
This book is useful because it really helps teachers think outside of the box, and gives them specific places to look for examples and resources. It is in no way a manual and does not provide step-by-step processes in implementing these tools—nor do I think it needs to. At times, some descriptions of examples seem lengthy, but they do help the reader delve more into what it feels like to implement a particular tool for a particular educational objective. I would recommend instructors who are either still not convinced of the benefits of digital tools or who are hesitant to use them to get a copy of this book as viewing the examples should spark some ideas.

I would use this book in the context of teacher training or personal professional development. However, for obvious reasons, I obviously wouldn’t use this in an English Studies course for writing, as it is a resource for the teacher. Granted, if the course were a graduate course in English Studies pedagogy, that’s another story.

The book is readily available at the usual online bookstores (Amazon, Barnes & Noble), or interested readers can go to the publisher’s website at christopher-gordon.com. The book retails for $32.95, and because it came out last year, I haven’t seen a lot of used copies surface yet. On Amazon, there are 5 used ones for sale at over $52 and new for over $70!

I saw one review on Amazon.com in which the reviewer hailed “how the book organizes its discussions of digital tools according to the thinking/writing processes they promote… In this sense the book is more than a ‘how to’ manual in that it gets at how these tools can be used to promote writing.” I agree and with the added feature of the online wiki, the book possesses the potential for an every-growing list of updated examples and resources as well as opportunities for further conversation.

Ball, Cheryl. “Show, Not Tell: The Value of New Media Scholarship.” Computers and Composition. 21. 2004. 403–425.

Beach, Richard and Chris Anson, Lee-Ann Kastman Breuch, Thom Swiss. Teaching Writing Using Blogs, Wikis, and other Digitial Tools. Norwood, MA: Christopher Gordon Publishers, Inc., 2009.

Beach, Richard and Chris Anson, Lee-Ann Kastman Breuch, Thom Swiss. “Digital Writing Wiki.” PBWiki.com. Retrieved 11 June 2010. http://digitalwriting.pbwiki.com/.

Coomey, Marion and John Stephenson. “Online Learning: It Is All About Dialog, Involvement, support and control—According to the Research.” Stephenson, John, ed. Teaching and Learning Online: Pedagogies for New Technologies. London: Kogan Page. 2001. 37-52.

“Teaching Writing Using Blogs, Wikis, and other Digitial Tools.” Christopher Gordon Publishers Webpage. Retrieved 11 June 2010. http://www.christopher-gordon.com/Authors/beach.shtml.