After 2+ months blogging I gave my students a survey to have them reflect on what they have accomplished. One of the questions was “How has writing for a world wide audience changed the way you write?” Besides putting capital letters at the beginning of each sentence, here are all of the unedited responses:
I write what people want to hear.
I wanted to perform my best and show people how I can write. I wanted to leave a good impression to the higher authorities reading my blog, therefore I wrote with enthusiasm and intelligence, and I wrote of very interesting topics that grasp the readers’ attentions.
It has changed the detail i put into my writing
I write better now that I know I am doing it for hundreds of people.
Now I always write as if I’m talking to a large audience, even in school.
I work extra hard and think of topics that other people can relate to.
I now know that I’m branching out to people world-wide!
People have given me constructive criticizm and that helped me to do better.
It has changed the way I write by just being aware of what people want to see and how well done things have to be. Basically it has made me a cautious writer.
It has made me think about what I write more and how I could improve my writing by doing it for different cultures.
Its changed the way i write because i get comments from people from around the world and it helps me improve my blogging style.
It has made me more confident with writing for people all over the world to see.
I write more to make the people around the world understand not just the U.S
Well it really make me think about what im putting down.
Writing to a world-wide audience has changed the way I write because you learn to communicate with others all around the world and you get to compare different life styles around the world.
It has made me think about what I write before I write it because everyone can see it.
Yes it has made me more aware about what you put on the internet and who can see it. So your writing has to be perfect.
It has enabled me to be able to write, making sure that anyone who reads it, will be able to understand what I am saying.
It makes me keep in mind that anyone and everyone is able to see it so I do not want to say something I may regret or something that may be inappropriate.
It has made me use spell-check more and write about different topics.
Knowing that the whole world is able to see what I’m writing makes me think twice about putting something up there. It makes me check my work more carefully and it motivates me to do my best work.
I think i write in a more “open way” so it appeals many age levels.
I think that having a world-wide audience changed the way I write because I really put felling into what I’m writing because I know that other people will be reading it than more than just my teacher.
It made me really look over my work.
It has made me think more about what I am going to write before I write it for everyone to see.
I expressed more to the world.
This made me take my time more to look for mistakes. I also wanted to put my best work out, so people would enjoy it.
I check my spelling and it has made me want to write more.
I write better and a little less off topic.
It is good to write a post with a world wide audiance because then if you are writing you need to keep in mind what a person would think when you are reading it and what they would think of what is written cound be unlimited and you would like that outlook to be posotive.
It makes me want to be perfect.
It makes me think that I can acomplish great things.
It made me think about what I am actualy writing more than usual.
It made me write more professionally and use bigger vocabulary words.
It changed the way I wrote because I new that there were going to be lots of people reading the post, so I had to make the best it could be.
it made me want to write a lot more.
It makes me want to do my very best.
I realize that some of our cutoms are much different than in other parts of the world, so i try not to be blunt when i am explaining things.
I want to make what I’m writting more interesting and make sure that it is good.
I alwasy have to do better so it reprssents how good i can do.
I have more people skills.
It has inspired me to look at their posts and see how much of a deep thought they put into their work, so I try and do the same
my vocabulary has gotten stronger.
I realized that a simple blog entry can promote a voice and different point of view to be heard around the world.
I no longer write pretentiously or just to Amerincans.
I am more open and I no longer assume that they know wht I’m talking about when I write.
It change a major role because i am so use to writing to a teacher and having it grade it and only her and me see it, but now its a bunch o people looking at it. so it became pretty scary and at the same time fun.
Same.
It makes me want to actually take the time into my writing pieces, because, now, i actually know that people are reading it and actually listening to a child and their ideas and imputs; imputs that can be so different from someone elses.
It makes me want to write better because I know that people from around the world will see it.
My writing is more creative
Im not ambaressed to write as much
You can write whatever you want because you know that some audience no matter their age or race, they will relate to your post.
I write more appropiate and I think more
It has my my writing a lot better
I think having an audience like this you think about what your writing and how it can relate to people all over.
My kids rock….
23 responses so far ↓
Paul, you are, truly and demonstrably, inspired and inspiring.
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Lots of great responses here, but this one jumped out at me:
It makes me think that I can accomplish great things.
If every student could think this, then the doors would be wide open for changing the world for a better place, right?
Thanks for sharing
Kevin
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what do you mean by are you kidding?
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Oooh, I absolutely love these comments. Thank you, so much, for sharing. Tell your kids they are the bomb.
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@anthony I am going to put the link to your house in this comment so other people can take a look and say “Are you kidding?”
http://anthony109.edublogs.org/2008/12/07/my-christmas-house/
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This is great. Exactly what we want to get out of student blogging! Great job
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I thoroughly enjoyed reading your students’ responses. They definitely “get it” and I think their reflections can be an inspiration to other teachers and students around the world. Tell them to keep up the great work and let them know that their thoughts and ideas are invaluable to others and that they make an impact every time they publish.
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These comments confirm my suspicion that students would be more motivated when presented with a global audience.
I discussed this possibility with an English dept. faculty member where I work, and she is greatly concerned about the privacy of students. She wants them to have a safe, walled-garden environment in which they can explore. I think she might not fully understand what she is missing by staying within that “safe” environment. Students can really “turn on” when given a chance to communicate with the world much more so than with a small community of learners.
Do you have any concerns about placing students on a global stage, putting their unrefined, undeveloped ideas out there vulnerable to criticism?
I would love to hear what you think about this objection, and I will share this article with her to see if there is something with her concerns that I am missing.
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Thank you Paul, for sharing! Great responses! Your pupils’ responses adds to the positive results of other researchers on the importance of blogging in developing literacy skills. Will it be OK if I use this post in my grad class and send the “Literacy and Technology” teacher candidates to read and comment on your blog’s post?
Ludmilla
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Having commented back to most of the students on their reflection post for the competition, there were certainly some amazing insights shown.
I am amazed that my small thought evolved into such a world wide activity and hopefully the next competition in 2009 will also help these students to improve further.
We will have a new group of students from the southern hemisphere to inspire in March when the next challenge starts.
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Paul – I’ve really enjoyed interacting with your students and you must be very proud of them. They are an amazing group and I’ve learnt a lot from interacting with them.
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Paul,
Your students’ comments confirm what so many of us believe about the benefits of blogging. The proof is in their own words. It looks like they gained a great deal when they were allowed to write for more than an audience of one!
Thank you so much for sharing this.
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Paul – Thanks so much for sharing the comments of your students. Their awareness for what and how they write has increased dramatically – you should be so proud of them.
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Its so refreshing to see authentic good responses to blogging from your great students! I shall certainly pass this on to my Teachers who are just starting down this path…THANK YOU and your students!
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Thanks for posting these comments from students as written. In reading and reflecting on the student’s work I was especially struck by this comment. “It makes me want to write better because I know that people from around the world will see it.” I’m looking forward to seeing the student’s growth this spring. I hope you will continue to share.
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Thanks for sharing your students’ perspectives. I am going to share them with my graduate students to help them paint a picture of the power of writing in a highly social and connected world.
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Great comments from the kids. It just HAS to be a HUGE difference between writing for you alone and writing for “real.” I’m going to bookmark these comments as ammunition when I get pulled into the argument again. Nice job!
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What does it say about the institution of school that the kids don’t care about how they write until they know they’re writing for a blog-sized audience? Could it be that students think that school is not the real world, so they say–maybe rightly–who cares?
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[...] How has writing for a world wide audience changed the way you write? | Blogush [...]
[...] short on in the discussion of Learning 2.0, on Paul Bogush’s nearly eponymously-named blog, Blogush. Bogush, an 8th grade teacher in Connecticut, asked his students to comment on how blogging for a [...]
haha
Mr. Bogush i don’t do that anymore, alhough it did make my blog stand out.
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@BillG You ask a great question.
“Do you have any concerns about placing students on a global stage, putting their unrefined, undeveloped ideas out there vulnerable to criticism?”
One I think I want to flesh out in a future post. I did mess around with answering it in a post last May:
http://blogush.edublogs.org/2008/05/10/what-do-you-see/
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