#1- “Whoever is doing most of the talking or most of the typing is doing most of the learning (and the more people listening the better).”
Blogging lets you and your students have written discussions and online communications. These discussions are publicly available and can be archived for future use. When students know that others will read their work, they do better work. When students know that others can learn from their work, they do better work.
Blogs are also amongst the easiest ways to publish a classroom website. You post a syllabus, class expectations, and all sorts of other stuff without registering a domain name or learning HTML.
Three Choices for Blogging Sites:
www.blogger.com Probably the largest blogging site on the internet- recently purchased by google. Pros: Free. Simple interface. Students who read blogs will be familiar with the tools and layout. Cons: I find long load times in posting and managing the blog. Only can post text, pictures and links.
www.edublogs.org
A free blogging site, powered by Wordpress (another free blogging tool), with sites preset up for educational blogging. Pros: Free. Simple interface. The ability to create simple web pages along with your blog for syllabi, course expectations, etc. A handy set of tutorials on the home page. Cons: Only can post text, pictures and links.
www.typepad.com Pros: You can upload any type of file- Word documents, Powerpoints, Sound files, etc. Easily downloaded from the page Cons: Somewhat more complicated interface. Subscription based service.
Blog Protocol and Privacy Issues
Students will be posting work to the Internet and must be cognizant of proper Internet protocol, and just plain decency! I tell my students to never publish a personal attack and to never be unduly critical or harsh in tone or content. I encourage students to use the comments option to praise their peer's work, to ask questions, and to point out what they found particularly informative, or engaging in a blog post. That being said, I do use blogs as a means of debate and often have students with opposing view points blog on a particular issue. Thus, it is not uncommon for students to criticize each other's arguments via their blogs. However, argumentation should be undertaken in a spirit of constructive criticism and in an effort to sharpen analytical thinking.
Try to avoid publishing student last names. The Web is by nature is public and as teachers and administrators we should not reveal the identity of our students online to strangers. Instruct students not to include their last name in posts or comments.
Ten Things to Do With Your Blogs:
Post a homework question
Each student writes a one paragraph response
Read a few before class to see what your students think about the reading
Invite outsiders to comment on student work
If you know the author of a book you are reading, have students write feedback and have the author respond
Have students from another school comment on your student’s work
Have students post discussion questions for tomorrow’s class
This is great when you know you won’t have time to plan
If you know that you’ve flubbed a class and students are confused, have them post questions about things they don’t understand
Have students post drafts for peer editing
While email is probably better for 1-1 peer editing, blogs are a great opportunity for multiple people to comment on a single piece of work.
Post your lecture notes or a summary of the day’s class
Have students post their notes for the day
Assign one student per day to be the scribe for the class. This is great for discussion based classes where you want students to focus on the discussion and not have to worry about taking notes.
Post the daily homework assignment
Post links to supplementary materials from the internet
Author bios or websites
Links to book reviews
Links to relevant news articles
Create new blogs for team projects
Students can post their work to the blog so that others can see what they are doing. They can also comment on each other’s work.
If faculty are trying to work as a team or core group, use a blog to communicate with each other about lessons, etc.
For an independent study- have students create their own blog
I have my students post an outline of their week’s work before our weekly meeting
"Your examples showed how we can maximize student participation in every class activity, and thus have them take ownership of their own learning."
Margartia Curtis, Head of School, Deerfield Academy, Deerfield, MA
