I must admit that I wasn’t and I guess I’m still not 100% behind the classroom blog, but it’s improving. One reason for my apprehension might be my first online experience. A few years ago I built, with the help of my brother, a class website to share important links and daily homework assignments. I thought parents and students would find it useful and use it often. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I advertised it with letters home and in direct conversations with parents and it got very little traffic. Very little might be an overestimate. After keeping it up for three years I abandoned it.
The blog definitely seems like an improvement from what I had because students can directly participate by adding comments. I think in order to make sure students participate I would have to require a certain number of comments from each student. For those of you that have blogs is this your practice? One point Eric hit upon in the PowerPoint he shared with us is that classroom blogs encourage ALL students participate. One quote he included that I really liked was, “I like the opportunity to compile my thoughts and express them when I’m ready and at my own pace.”
I also think Dan Basler has a great thing going with his blog. In AP biology I’m so focused on covering content that I don’t have usually find time to discuss current scientific research/discoveries. Or if we do it lasts only a few minutes because we have to move on. My AP students are truly interested in biology and I think they would put in the time and become invested in the process.
I have a website too and have had it for years. I'll admit that I'm not very good at keeping it up. But, I found that students were really just looking to see what classes I taught and who I was. It isn't used much as a resource I don't think. We use BB at my college, so I have a shell for each of my classes, even onground traditional classes. This works much better for me. I'm thinking of ways to use a blog within that, or to have wiki (maybe)--I'm trying to think of student portfolios in some way. We will be upgrading BB and it may have a portfolio function. But that's the direction I think I would go for using wikis and blogs....still not sure. I think a website is not dynamic or collaborative enough unless a blog or wiki is part of it.
ReplyDeleteI'm not a very fastidious person, and often find any online content being neglected. However, I do think RSS feeds and Google reader are helpful to remind me to: a) read the blogs I follow, and b) update my own content.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing that helps is setting up your blog to email you when someone comments.
I'm really hoping to make it a habit: maybe if student input is part of it, it will become a more habitual part of what we do? I know it's become an important part of just about every day as a result of taking this class.
If I go to a classroom blog, I am thinking that there will have to be an assessment piece for 7th and/or 8th graders to get them into the practice of posting and making comments. Maybe some kind of point system that accumulates over the course of a term, or individual evaluations of specifically assigned posts?
ReplyDeleteSounds like what I went through with my website. Very few students/parents using it, and eventually, I just stopped using it. Your AP Bio also sounds a lot like my Adv Bio class. I'm so focused on the content, that other more interesting and new discoveries are neglected. I'm going to try using a blog to encourage reading/discussing new discoveries.
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