On March 29, 2018, I participated in a WordPress conference entirely held on Twitter. The organizers, Natalie Lafferty (@nlafferty) and Pat Lockley (@pgogy), described the conference as, “PressED is a twitter conference (#pressedconf18) looking into how WordPress is used in teaching, pedagogy and research.” The website for the conference can be found here: https://pressedconf.org/
A tweet about two hours ahead of showtime…
In less than 2 hours at 21:50pm BST (that’s 2:50pm MDT (NM time)), I will be tweeting in the #pressedconf18 about using student blogs in organic chemistry…please join in the fun @pressedconfhttps://t.co/PQ1HE6GoXi
— Rissa Sorensen-Unruh (@RissaChem) March 29, 2018
And then the fun begins…
1. Hi everyone! What a pleasure it is to participate in this event! I want to thank @nlafferty & @pgogy for organizing this event and for their graciousness with my schedule (teaching schedules are crazy sometimes)!@pressedconf #pressedconf18
— Rissa Sorensen-Unruh (@RissaChem) March 29, 2018
2. As a quick intro, I have taught Introductory, General, & Organic Chemistry (lectures & labs both F2F & online) @CNMOnline in Albuquerque NM since 2002. I’m also a statistics MS & Learning Sciences PhD grad student @UNM #pressedconf18
My webpage is here: https://t.co/7vPSNX5ZkC— Rissa Sorensen-Unruh (@RissaChem) March 29, 2018
3. The primary goal of my WordPress assignment (learning journals) is to engage the students with material in organic chemistry through public & digital written communication while building study skills that students might employ in future STEM classes#pressedconf18 @pressedconf
— Rissa Sorensen-Unruh (@RissaChem) March 29, 2018
4. Students start this semester-long assignment by getting a @wordpressdotcom account. Blogs are hashtagged (#Chemistry2810) & shared via a separate SM platform like @SlackHQ, where ongoing classroom discussion occurs. #pressedconf18 @pressedconf pic.twitter.com/y7UjlCCCVM
— Rissa Sorensen-Unruh (@RissaChem) March 29, 2018
5. The blogs allow multimodal composition & the lack of a prompt offers max creativity. The assignment has many iterations, w/ a min of 6 entries thru the semester. This timeline is IDEAL but not restricted b/c I grade all blogs 1X at semester’s end.#pressedconf18 @pressedconf pic.twitter.com/SNy04IdsCp
— Rissa Sorensen-Unruh (@RissaChem) March 29, 2018
6. The blogs can be easily incorporated into my current coursework. My didactic overall aim is 2 promote collaboration, foster & moderate discussion, & facilitate student learning thru doing. The blogs help students reflect on their learning & promote metacognition #pressedconf18
— Rissa Sorensen-Unruh (@RissaChem) March 29, 2018
7. Many students have made comments that the blogs are relatively easy to complete & have provided a great deal of benefit to their learning process b/c the blogs forced the students to relook at exams in a detailed way. #pressedconf18 @pressedconfhttps://t.co/13VgiNnHnr
— Rissa Sorensen-Unruh (@RissaChem) March 29, 2018
8. Other students have stated that they enjoyed the assignment because it incorporated a more personal reflection & writing to the organic coursework, which, like most of chemistry, lacks a major writing component.#pressedconf18 @pressedconf https://t.co/9oykVzAObA
— Rissa Sorensen-Unruh (@RissaChem) March 29, 2018
21:50 and we have @RissaChem to discuss student learning journals and WordPress https://t.co/hW5bxwFPby #pressedconf18
— PressED Conf – A tweeting WordPress conference (@pressedconf) March 29, 2018
9. Recently, I conducted two pilot tests, both of convenience samples, to see if the blogs were really as great as I thought they were. The overwhelming response was positive. My student survey is the image shown…#pressedconf18 @pressedconf pic.twitter.com/D8Hne8QS9z
— Rissa Sorensen-Unruh (@RissaChem) March 29, 2018
10. Of particular interest (at least to me) – the strong positive correlation between those students who self-reported that they regularly blogged thru the semester & their exam performance, particularly on the final exam.#pressedconf18 @pressedconf https://t.co/vA7j9dE11h
— Rissa Sorensen-Unruh (@RissaChem) March 29, 2018
11. Most students chose to use their blogs as exam reflections. Students also participated in groups who encouraged each other by brainstorming ideas, offering technical support (i.e. helping each other use WordPress), or by commenting on &/or editing other’s work.#pressedconf18
— Rissa Sorensen-Unruh (@RissaChem) March 29, 2018
12. I have seen SUCH increased community in my classroom due to the usage of social media & blogs. The students spend time working together & helping each other. They have inspired me to continue blogging & engaging as well.#pressedconf18 @pressedconf https://t.co/XZfiykKdYe
— Rissa Sorensen-Unruh (@RissaChem) March 29, 2018
13. More definitely needs to be done here. I need to run a mixed methods study to evaluate this aspect of my organic classes. But I’m working on it…#pressedconf18 @pressedconfhttps://t.co/t56UOXAlD3
— Rissa Sorensen-Unruh (@RissaChem) March 29, 2018
14. #pressedconf18 @pressedconf
Here are a couple of my favorite organic student blogs (posted with permission):https://t.co/9Lep0dkNXShttps://t.co/AJYaGDqo49,— Rissa Sorensen-Unruh (@RissaChem) March 29, 2018
15. Thanks for your time & for listening to and engaging with my #pressedconf18 session.
Do you have questions or comments you’d like to share?@pressedconfhttps://t.co/PQ1HE6GoXi— Rissa Sorensen-Unruh (@RissaChem) March 29, 2018
16. (Bonus) I’ll be blogging this set of tweets on my blog as well. The end…#pressedconf18 @pressedconfhttps://t.co/7vPSNX5ZkC
— Rissa Sorensen-Unruh (@RissaChem) March 29, 2018
With a bit of feedback…and wrap up…
Thanks so much for your presentation Rissa, great to have a contribution from the sciences. Not always easy to find examples to share with my science colleagues so thank you! #pressedconf18
— Natalie Lafferty (@nlafferty) March 29, 2018
