18 September 2008

Blogs: Why Bother?

A reader asks:

It's nice that you explain how to make a blog. But what I want to know is 'WHY BOTHER MAKING ONE'?


Good question. Here's a handful of reasons:

1) Student Portfolios. Once you know how to set up a blog, you can take your students through the process. I have my students set up their personal blogs following the same safety procedures we used, but they add only me -- the teacher -- as a reader because there will be graded work posted to the student's blog. Once the blog is set up, I have my students post original thoughts and reactions to things we've read no less than twice a week and I have them post all of their essays and translation tests directly to their blogs for grading. By the end of the year, they've created a completely manageable and portable chronological portfolio that measures just how far they've come.

2) Grading vocab quizzes / tests. This is what I do (note that all of my vocab quizzes are by dictation). The student opens their blog. As I recite vocab words, the student copies each into a post and then has three to five minutes to answer them all depending on quantity of words (usually between 20 to 30 in a given week). Once finished, the student posts their quiz. Now it has a time-stamp on it, so I will know if they have tried to go back and 'fix' things after time has been called (if they do, they forfeit their grade). Once posted, I have the students check their own work. They then post their grades as a comment to their original quiz posting. Again it has a time stamp and when I go back and look over their checked work, if they commit an error in grading they forfeit their grade (harsh, yes.... but after the first time they just don't make mistakes -- no one ever said that using blogs and letting students grade their own work and learn from their own mistakes made you a wussy teacher).

3) Posting graded essay questions. They post on their blog, I comment and leave a grade. If the student has questions, they can arrange to see me during off mods or we can discuss via a thread on their blog. Easy.

4) Interactive real-time RSS calendar. This feature rocks. It's a calendar. And when I enter due dates / test dates / etc onto it, it is both posted online and a copy of the schedule is automatically sent to the student's email. For students who need a little extra 'push' when it comes to due dates, it can also automatically be sent to parents.

5) Podcasts: students will be able to make their own 'radio stations' (i.e. pronuciation / metrical practice). These 'radio stations' can be kept in one spot on the blog and downloaded into iTunes playlists for purposes of comparison, or for just having fun swapping mp3s of spoken Latin. The teacher can create her or his own podcast of proper pronunciation which can be set to automatically download into student's iTunes. (Students don't have to find it; it automatically comes to them.)

These are just a few ideas. We haven't even started talking about how to use the blog for research and in creating interactive bibliographies. And there's much much more. And the best thing about it is that the limits for classroom application are only limited by the imagination of the classroom teacher. So, think creatively.

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