Techlearning blog

The recent PEW survey Writing, Technology and Teens has prompted a number of writings across the Net over the past few weeks. While much of the writing focuses on different areas of the study, it seems one is causing unjustified assumptions and another critical part of the survey is relatively non-existent in these discussions.

Teen Bloggers and Writing
One finding of the PEW Survey was that teenage bloggers write more (47% compared to 33%) and find more value in writing (65% compared to 53%) than non-blogging teens. On the surface, these numbers are quite intriguing especially for those that see blogging as a strong curriculum piece. However, these numbers are misleading and seemed to be the cause of unjustified assumptions such as a recent eSchool News article, Blogging Helps Encourage Teenage Writing, states that “Blogging is helping many teens become prolific writers” citing the above statistics as support.

Here is the problem. There is nothing in the survey that identifies blogging as the reason for the increase in writing or the increase value in writing. Many of these students could have appreciated writing before blogging and because of this value, found blogging to be a natural extension of such passion. Many of these bloggers could have been writing prolifically before become bloggers but found blogging as another outlet. It very well could be that “blogging helps encourage teen writing”, but none of this was made clear in the research even though some want to grab onto anything to prove just how valuable web 2.0 is in education. Instead of making assumptions, let’s ask these questions and perform the research that is needed to justify these statements.

Education has enough of this type of rhetoric being spread throughout various forms of media that is highly disappointing to see such statements being made. This is not to discredit the PEW findings; it is a criticism of individuals and organizations using it to draw false conclusions from such statistics and highlight those conclusions in headlines because that is what they want the stats to say. In fact, there is a lot that can be used from this survey that should be the center of attention specifically what teens say motivate them to write and what schools can do to improve writing instructions.

Teens and Writing Instruction Best Practices
While the study had many interesting points, an area that really stood out to me was what teens felt motivated them to write and how they believed schools could improve writing instruction. The survey showed that many students saw the following as important in these areas:

- Choice
- Opportunity for Creativity
- High Expectations/Challenge from Adults
- Audience
- Interesting Curricula
- In-class time
- Computer-based writing tools
- Feedback

Rather intriguing is how well these ideas align with research on best practices in writing instruction: a supportive environment of peers and adults, regular in-class time including workshops, choice and ownership, authentic writing opportunities, modeling, and frequent, constructive feedback to name a few.

What is also interesting is how a proper blogging program could potentially address some of these areas in a way not entirely possible by other means. First, the idea of audience is something that a long-term blogging program could address for all students. Whether via a walled garden, open space, or mixed model, blogging offers the opportunity for writing to be made public, something that the students surveyed feel enhances their work:

Well, if I knew that other people were going to read what I wrote and react to what I was writing then I would make it better and I would want to do the best that I could at it. Teen 1

I write differently that I would if I was writing it for my teacher because of pressure from your peers. Teen 2

With the potential for a global audience, blogging offers an amazing opportunity to maximize audience. Obviously, blogging that is project based or course base will struggle to develop that global audience, but a blogging program that grants students access to the same blog over a long period of time offers a greater chance for such an audience and a greater chance for higher levels of writing motivation.

Second, the idea of feedback that is constructive and consistent is something that is well known as important; however, it is one that many teachers struggle with balancing amongst all of their students who need support. When work becomes public, feedback comes from more than just the teacher once an audience has been established. In fact, when writing is made public such as with a blog, it affords teachers a variety of options of creating various sources of feedbacks.
One in particular is through partnerships with universities and their pre-service teachers, which I’ve seen first hand as a masterful way of adding another source of constructive feedback on student writing. By no means does this imply the teacher should not be directly involved. It is simply adding more feedback and greater expectations, both of which students say are important to their motivation and improving writing instruction.

Most importantly…

The PEW study on Writing, Technology, and Teens is packed with interesting findings that teachers and administrators will want to discuss. Most importantly, 93% of students in a recent PEW student say they write purely for pleasure and 86% say good writing is important for success. These are exciting pieces of information that schools need to support and continue finding ways to maximize whether with technology or not.