Classroom blogs, educational blogs, blogs by teachers, blogs for teachers, blogs for and by teachers ... phew. There are too many to count, but here are a few to get us started:
An example of “reflective blogging” from the author of the book In the Trenches: A Teacher's Defense of Public Education:
http://publiceducationdefender.blogspot.com/
You can also check out his list of Favorite Blogs on the left (just scroll down below his profile, etc). Browse around; there’s infinite variety.
Founded in 1998, the learntoquestion.com website is an exemplar of blogging in the classroom. It is the online face of the Facing History class at Boston Latin School. Check out some of their powerful discussion threads:
http://www.learntoquestion.com/class/discussion/
In past years, the class activities were meticulously logged here:
http://www.learntoquestion.com/class/archives/2005-2006/log/
Mrs. Huff’s English Classes is a nice example of a portal site with a lot more than just the class calendar:
http://class.huffenglish.com/
She also hosts a spot for student written work:
http://students.huffenglish.com/
Here's a blog for a math class:
http://pc40s.blogspot.com/
And here's one for the elementary level:
http://itc.blogs.com/thewriteweblog/
And if you want to check out what I’ve got going on, you can find my classes here:
http://kitsis.blogspot.com
I’ve used Blogger to host web quests as well, such as this one on The Crucible, and a pre-reading research assignment for Of Mice and Men.
Here’s the class discussion on The Scarlet Letter mentioned before.
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8 comments:
Are you still excited about blogging??
I can definitely see many uses for blogs in the classroom, but at the same time, I am quite intimidated by what I am seeing. I don’t think that I’m organized enough to do this . . . for example, I rarely have class assignments for the whole week ready the weekend before. I wonder what the benefit of blogs over a teacher website is, other than the fact that students can comment in a blog but not on a website?
Xoxo
Your bff
Laura
Blogs are cool.
I'm still a bit anxious (okay, more than a bit).
The links for Of Mice and Men are very impressive.
Can't wait for our after dinner session.
I am still excited about blogging. In fact, I have just learned that that blogs are a lot cooler than I thought they were. I can do much more with blogs than I can with my boring old First Class website...
The first link posted (public education defender) has a really interesting point about the presidential debate. I felt offended by the comments of both candidates comments on education. Glad to know that I am not alone.
This is a powerful tool with a lot of capability. My fears are that I won't be able to manage the work required to create a successful blog and learning environment for my students.
I found that there was cross-school activities, sometimes from schools in different states or countries. This was very cool. How go teachers find each other to create these kinds of environments?
:)
Lots of good resources - I especially liked looking at the elementary blog - using Voicethread as well. The time question is an important one, as a blog has to be relatively up to date to be useful. Some other blogs to check out:
Cool Cat Teacher Blog
The Fischbowl
Speaking of History
I viewed the blog of the BLA teacher's Facing History program as well as Stacy's Arlington High blog, and find everything I've seen very inspiring and exciting!!!!!!!!! Some observations I have are:
1) a few great questions from the teacher can spark fabulous student dialogue,
2) Open dialogue among students seems very democratic since they choose what issues are most interesting to them to respond to. The BLA teacher seems to have put 5-10 questions out there and let students respond to whichever they were most interested in; some were more popular than others.
3) Students seem to write their responses as brainstorms or a transcript of verbal conversation, which can be annoying to me as an English teacher who wants to see concise writing in Academic English. What's a good way to encourage/enforce this?
4) I love the ability to link to select web resources and thoughtful tidbits, eg. cartoons, word-a-day, quotes, etc.
5) It's all so clean and beautiful! This is a lovely presentation of an English class.
6) Stacy is such a great teacher!!!
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