EduBlogging: Are You into It?

[scrivener]

I'm mostly talking about using a web-journal as a means of communicating with your students, but also as an interactive device. I run forum software for my one English class (I'd show you, but it's password protected and I haven't set up a good guest-access system yet), and it is very popular with my students. A huge advantage to having students journal online is that I can respond to them wherever I've got a computer: I don't have to lug crates of spiral notebooks around with me anymore! Also, my students never lose their journals now! Some have even updated them while away from school on family trips.

In my computer class (website here (http://www.froshcom.com)), I just use it as a place to post assignments and whatever files my students need for their work. I haven't updated it in a while because they're working on a couple of long-term things.

I set a friend of mine up with his own site (website here (http://www.americanhistory8.com), and he's loving it. Check out how he sometimes asks prompting questions for his students to respond to.

There are some places that set up free, no-advertising online journals for teachers. Check out EduBlogs.org (http://www.edublogs.org).

I'd love to hear what your experiences with these have been like, or answer any questions for people interested in giving it a try!

[AAA Teacher Forum]

My school and district purchased the Internet-based service SchoolCenter for classroom web sites. One component of this service is weblogs. It's great because you can set it up with or without passwords. I have used Blogs a few different ways:

My class received a traveling bear from the Imaginations foundation this year. We set up a blog for Goldilocks to chronicle her time in our classroom. Each student got to take Goldilocks and our digital camera home with them. When they returned to school, we uploaded their photos and they used the blog to record her adventures.

I went to New York City with Scholastic and I blogged Goldilocks' and my adventures. The students were then able to correspond. They really enjoyed keeping up with us.

I currently post my homework on our classroom web site each day. I use a page with tables, but I would like to move it over to a blog.

A second grade teacher at my school has had his students post their writer's notebook ideas on their blog...he does keep this behind a password because of their age.

For my most recent blog, my class and I are currently working on a project with Discovery Education & Google Earth. I have been blogging our process through this project.

You can view the various blogs by visiting my classroom web site. (They are all linked in the left column.) http://schools.dcsdk12.org/jjensen

Jennifer

[scrivener]

Thanks for the response -- clearly, the World-Wide Web is changing the way we do things in the classroom, and I think many of the changes won't just make our teaching fresh, but they may change our understanding of the way kids learn.

I am known by my colleages as the anti-technology technology teacher because in many cases I prefer the low-tech method of getting work done. I also am very wary (and ever-vigilant) about the apparent attitude by many (older) educators that because you have technology, you should use it. No administrator likes to see money get spent on tech that doesn't get used, so of course that makes sense, but I believe that tech should be in place for teachers to explore, and then to play with in order to see what might enhance learning.

So one major, obvious characteristic of the Web is that it's world-wide (hence, the name!), and I'm wondering if any of you have seen teachers take advantage of this shrinking of the world in the classroom. The teacher who runs the AmericanHistory8 site I link above is interested in turning into an interactive experience for his students and for students studying the same material elsewhere in the world. That's not happened yet, but I like the ambition. For the forum I run with my literature students, I'm interested in maintaining contact with my former, graduated students and having them interact with my current students about the literature we're reading together.

Anyone else got an experience to share with online interactive applications in the classroom?

[Mr. M]

I am very into blogging from the classroom. I love it. I am a kindergarten teacher in Wisconsin and use the blog format to share info with the parents of my students. Check it out:
http://marchionda.org
I love looking at teacher created web sites and have created a place for tech minded teachers at:
TechyTeachers.org (http://techyteachers.org)
I'm looking forward to creating a community there, too.

I cannot say enough about the power of blogging. My parents love it and have hit the site around 24,000 times since october, viewing photos, movies, and my Keepin' it Real KinderCast. Quite fun stuff! Thanks for your time.

[bernie]

I started using a blog for my students and parents this year. I mostly post homework and other assignments. It's also a great way to keep parents informed of what's going on, and it serves as a first draft for my monthly hardcopy newsletter. It's also easy to post pictures just to liven things up from time to time. I've had good responses from parents, and I know they use it (they notice when I miss a day).

[AAA Teacher Forum]

Bernie,
It's great to hear about others using blogs in their classrooms. Within my building, teachers also use blogs in the following ways:
-provide students an opportunity to discuss the books they are reading (book clubs/literature circles)
-whole class questions: each student can respond to the same question while using other students' as inspiration

I think it would be fun to have students complete a science experiment at home over the course of a week. They could then report their findings and conclusions on the blog. This would allow students to try different ideas.

Jennifer

[TeacherRW]

At the present time, I do not have enough time to "blog". My classroom webpage was created over the summer and has had some minor updates. My goal is to start uploading assignments daily after semester break. Ugghh... I need to establish a routine in that I upload assignments at the same time my students fill out their planners!!

[cumminch]

I am an online teacher so I have created message boards for my classes for the students and parents to discuss things in our closed network system. I will post ideas that parents have shared with me about how they run their schedule, or wonderful extension activites that they have found. My students are mostly K-3 so the kids are not usually the ones posting but there are sometimes when I will have them submit a lesson to the message board so they can get feedback from other students. I will also post and respond to the kids questions and their posts. My kids love using the messageboards and I have yet to have any problems with the kids not using it properly.

[javamomma]

I dont blog, but do keep a classroom website
http://thompsongiraffes.tripod.com/index.html
up to date for my class/parents.

[dolmansaxlil]

I have a blog where I keep parents up to date on happenings in the classroom. I have a few parents who check it daily, but I wish there were more. This is the first year that this has been happening at our school, so I hope it will pick up with time.

I also have a student blog that the students may post on. They have their own username and password, but the blog is public. I use it for a couple of things. One is to teach them about safely using the internet. When they post something personal (last name, phone number) I can remove it and then talk to them about why. Sometimes I'll give them an assignment where they have to post on the blog (haven't done that in a while). The kids favourite feature is the photo section. I take a LOT of photos in the school, and I post them (with no names attached) for everyone to see. They LOVE that.

[AndreaB]

Speaking of blogging, do any of you know of blogging software that allows you to embed a blog into a preexisting web site, as opposed to going to another site such as blogspot to set one up?

[scrivener]

Andrea B, if you tell me more about your website's setup, I can probably point you in the direction of something that works. Are you running your own site on your own domain?

[Addict]

Andrea,

I use WordPress (http://wordpress.org/) on one of my sites. It was very easy to set up and manage. It is also free :) Needs PHP and MySQL on your existing website.

[dolmansaxlil]

I use WordPress as well. It's very easy to deal with!

[javamomma]

What is edupress? I use lycos only because it was free.

[AndreaB]

I will check out WordPress...I'm currently not using any kind of database-linked stuff on my site, just regular text and pictures and such, but perhaps my hosting company has those capabilities.

[SLP]

Huh? Are you speaking another language?

[SuzyQII]

My school just started blogging. We use TypePad. Many teachers feel it is just one more thing we have to do. I enjoy it though. It has proved to be very valuable when a parent says they were not aware of an assignment, and there it is posted on the blog for days! My favorite thing though is group emails. Parents seem to appreciate that more than the blog.

[orlandoteacher]

I use edublogs too! Here's my site if you wanna check it out.

www.otownteacher.edublogs.org