Persuasive Intent and Audience: My blog over the semester will be about using new media in the college writing classroom. My audience is other teachers—specifically other writing teachers, though teachers of other subjects interested in new media in the classroom may be interested in it as well.
The challenging thing about my audience is that there is a range of people interested in using new media in the classroom—diehard fans who have been doing it for years, older teachers feeling pressure to use new media but unsure of where to start, and teachers wanting new ideas. I’ll probably be writing to people who are already convinced that it’s important to use new media in the classroom, but I don’t want to isolate people who are unsure whether they want to use new media or not.
The overall persuasive intent of the blog is to convince readers that they can easily use new media in teaching, and that there are proven, pedagogically sound ways to do so.
Blog Name: New Media Classroom
Blog Site: newmediaclassroom.com
Frequency: I plan to post every Thursday, so people can expect one post per week and know when to look for it. I also think that for my audience it’s best to have it during the week—most teachers probably don’t want to be reading posts on the weekend.
| Post Number | Date to Post | Plan for post |
| 1 | Jan. 21st | Reflecting on what’s worked with new media in the classroom in the past and how I plan to improve. |
| 2 | Jan. 28th | Incorporating current events into the classroom: How to use the State of the Union address in teaching. |
| 3 | Feb. 4th | Online public spheres and freshmen writing. |
| 4 | Feb. 11th | Bibliography of research on new media in the classroom. |
| 5 | Feb. 18th | My own thoughts on a current new media education article. |
| 6 | Feb. 25th | Mid-semester teaching reflection. |
| 7 | Mar. 4th | Sample lesson plans that incorporate new media elements. |
| 8 | Mar. 11th | Teaching website creation in the writing classroom. |
| 9 | Mar. 18th | TBD – probably an analysis of a pivotal book on how to use new media in the classroom. Maybe the book by Jeff Rice. |
| 10 | Mar. 25th | TBD – probably defining key terms. |
Images: I want my blog to be visually appealing, and to use images and interesting blog formatting. At the same time, I know that because of my content, my posts will probably be text heavy. I’ll try to use at least one image, video, infographic, or other new media item in every post.
Length: Long enough to really develop and to get into enough detail; but short enough you can quickly read it. So between 500-1000 words.
Hyperlinks: I will use hyperlinks to other posts within my blog. I should also stay up to date on other people posting on the same things and hyperlink to other interesting and relevant articles.
Twitter Integration: My twitter name is @kathycowley. I’ve decided to use my name because this blog relates to my area of study, and I want other people on twitter to know who I am as an individual.
I plan to see what hashtags people are using to post on twitter and to use Tweetdeck as a platform to help me follow people and see pertinent tweets. I’ve noticed that one of the hashtags used in twitter is #edutech, which stands for education technology. I’ll probably put that hashtag on most of my posts, though if I can find a hashtag people are using that’s more specific to writing and new media, then I’ll use that. I plan to tweet other people’s articles that relate to this topic, retweet interesting tweets from others, post mini-book/article reviews of new media articles—both to help me do the research and to share what I’m finding, and tweet every time that I post a related blog post.
