Blogging

=Blogging= =Dyna's Blog= =Articles on Blogging= Summary: This article is a question/answer format between Aguilar and an 8th grade English teacher. The teacher, Jesie Thaler, explains how she has used blogging in her classroom to give students an authentic audience, rather than just their teacher. She has found that by posting students' writings, the students have shown more excitement to write and have had more incentive to revise their writing for publishing. A couple of the suggestions that she shares are to visit the blog a couple of minutes each day to promote excitement about the blog, and to start with an activity that all students can complete successfully. Summary: "Take Your Class to the Internet" gives teachers simple information on how to set up a blog in their classroom. Echlin shares that the first step to setting up a blog is to decide on the blog's purpose: Classroom management(posting assignments, handouts, notes, notices), learning journals to write reflectively, online notebook to track student progress, class discussion, and individual student expression. After the teacher had decided on the blog's main use, Echlin shared ideas on how to assess blogs posts, sites to use in setting up a blog(Blogger, Edublogs, and Class Blogmeister), how to protect students, and how to bring the blog into the classroom. Summary: This article appeared in the New York Times just today. This article is about how web logs(blogs) are growing in popularity in America's classrooms. There are many reasons teachers are choosing to implement blogs in their classrooms. One of the reasons is the timeliness of feedback from teachers, as well as, peers. Another reason for using blogs in that student effort tends to increase, due to the fact that they are writing to an authentic audience. Ease of use, is another reason teachers are choosing to use blogs in the classrooms. Blogs are maintained by the students and are easier to update than websites. Of course, as with any new idea, there are some criticisms to blogging, which include the facts that students rarely blog outside of the classroom and that blogging may form bad habits in writing(spelling, grammar, etc...).
 * "Blogs Give Students an Audience" by Elena Aguilar
 * "Digital Dicussion: Take Your Class to the Internet" by Helena Echlin
 * "In the Classroom, Web Logs Are the New Bulletin Boards" by Jeffery Seling

Blogging Is History: Taking Classroom Discussions Online Summary: This article is an overview on how Eric Langhurst, an American history teacher, has successfully implemented a blog with his students. He used the blog as a way for students to discuss a book that they were all reading. They answered questions posted by Langhurst, responded to each other's responses, and actually asked Lanhurst questions as well. Langhurst also set up a blog session with the author of the book that they were discussing. Langhurst also attached projects to his blog, including podcasts created by students using Audacity. He felt that the use of a blog gave the students more motivation and a greater sense of ownship in their learning.

Blog On: Think and Link with Weblogs Summary: James Daly's article on blogging is a short article about the simplicity of creating a weblog and how a mass community can be created just by linking blogs. He points out how just because it is a blog, does not necessarily mean that it will be interesting and worth reading. Daly goes on to suggest interesting and thought provoking blogs for the educational community and their links.