326
Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 55(4)
Dec 2011 / Jan 2012
doi:10.1002/JAAL.00039
© 2011 International Reading Association
(pp. 326–335)
Holly Hungerford-Kresser | Joy Wiggins | Carla Amaro-Jiménez
Like I said, the blogs were not a factor in me learning anything really. The
textbook and the classroom activities were but the blogs were not. (Anonymous
focus group participant)
In the digital age of Facebook, Twitter, Wikis, and blogging, it seems only
natural to integrate digital literacies in preservice teacher education programs.
We chose blogs as a pedagogical tool in our content-area literacy classes for
preservice teachers, hoping to help them engage in discussions that were close-
ly aligned with the course content while building classroom communities.
The blogging project was borne from a Quality Enhancement Program
(QEP) with funding received by the first two authors. As part of the project,
a longitudinal study (two and a half years) was carried out on the effectiveness
of integrating blogs into our content literacy classrooms. Though we have
rarely read published studies on projects that were deemed “failures,” this is
what our project appeared to be.
As we studied the quantitative results semester after semester, the blogs
statistically had no measurable impact on students’ perceptions of the course
or content literacy. Granted, students were generally pleased with the content
of the course, but there was no statistical significance found in relation to
the blogging itself, no matter what was done to try and make the blogs
more useful to students. In fact, students typically cited the blogs as the least
important tool in their learning the course content.
As teachers, however, we had absorbed the discourses (Fairclough, 2001;
Gee, 1999) surrounding technology and the classroom, and we were curious
about why students did not respond well to the blogs. We assumed that
this generation of tech-savvy students would enjoy this particular medium
for discussing their reading. After all, weren’t these the students who were
supposed to love any sort of technological intervention? Weren’t these
supposed to be the students who were anticipating the myriad ways that they
could incorporate technology into their future content classrooms?
The need to integrate
technology into the
curriculum for preservice
teachers comes with its
own set of challenges. By
sharing our struggles with
integrating blogging into
our own classrooms, we
hope to both encourage
and inform educators
interested in making their
classrooms technology-rich
environments.
Learning From Our Mistakes: What Matters
When Incorporating Blogging in the Content
Area Literacy Classroom