Blog Assignment: Utilizing Blogs in the Classroom

Although blogs are helpful when developing a professional development community and sharing information with other educators, many educators use them as a platform in the classroom to allow students to showcase their work and reach global audiences. Refer to page 84 in the book excerpt by Alan November from your Week 1 Resources and consider how you will begin to integrate blogs as an instructional tool in your classroom.

For your application this week, you will begin to explore the potential of this simple, yet powerful tool by developing some initial ideas for how you might use a blog to enrich the learning experience for your students.

Step 1: Spend some time playing with your blog space to see what is possible and familiarize yourself with the features available. Consider what types of activities that you could use your blog for that are specific to the subject and grade level that you currently teach.

Step 2: By Wednesday, post an idea to your personal blog for how you might use a blog in your classroom. What purpose would the blog serve? Is it a place for students to interact about content? Is it a showcase for their work? How does using a blog enhance the lesson? Include your grade level, content area, and your rationale as to why a blog is a good tool for the instructional context.

Step 3: Return to the Blog Links Board under Course Home to obtain the links of your group members' blogs and visit each one. Review their ideas for incorporating blogs into their lessons. For at least two group members, post comments regarding the challenges that you anticipate for their lessons by Friday. How would you recommend that your classmate overcome them?

Step 4: Check back to the blogs you posted to on Sunday. If you received any comments from your posts, share your thoughts or reaction to them.

When complete, submit links to your personal blog that you created, your aggregator account, and the links to the blogs of your classmates that you posted comments on in the Dropbox by Sunday. Use the Submit an Assignment link, choose the Week 2: Application basket, then copy and paste both URL addresses in the comments box.