As a high school teacher I have used other teacher’s blogs as resources for lesson plans, handouts, and assessment ideas. Most notably I have used Kim Foglia’s site, www.explorebiology.com, which is one of the earlier examples of a teacher website or blog. While she was teaching she posted new lecture slides for her classes and made older resources available in an indexed system. This is not technically a blog, Kim had coding experience and while she did not have the ability to take comments, she did post her e-mail address on the site and was very communicative on the AP Biology discussion board that she actually pointed teachers to in her teachers only section. Another useful site, which is more like a blog, in my opinion, is Stephen Taylor’s www.ibiology.net. He shares resources for different levels of International Baccalaureate Biology for teachers and students. He has most of these indexed according to topic and he is still actively posting new resources along with his commentary on them. He typically uses the comments to clarify his use of the resources and makes the point several times that all of his work is a work in progress. One of the strongest points of both of these websites is how they open up their resource for discussion. The commentary and collaboration that these teachers and often students participate in helps create better resources and critical thought that may not have come to light without this discussion.
Richardson has several different reasons for using blogs in the classroom. The reasons I agree with most are first that “weblogs are truly a constructivist tool for learning. Because the content that students and teachers create is on the World Wide Web, it is content that becomes a part of the wider body of knowledge that the Internet represents” (Richardson, Kindle Locations 639-641). One of the major strengths of the Internet is that information is constantly at our fingertips. Aggregating and creating more information should only help more people learn this information. Another reason Richardson agrees with using blogs in the classroom is, “blogs archive the learning that teachers and students do, facilitating all sorts of reflection and metacognitive analysis that was previously much more cumbersome” (Richardson, Kindle Locations 650-651). As a teacher that prefers to grade for growth
in students I have and continue to struggle with the large amount of grading and re-grading this brings to my plate. When students have blogs they can post, critique, and re-post without requiring a teacher to view it multiple times. Even better other students can critique work without the teacher needing to be involved at all and this can lead to a learning experience for both students.
This brings us to the question, how can we use blogs in a classroom? The first step is to consider what a good student blog would look like and how to relay this information to students. After considering the length of time you would like to use the student blog and in what capacity you would like to use it. You will then need to consider how you will grade it. Depending on your students ages’ and writing ability there are many different ways to write a rubric. This particular rubric is for use in an upper level biology class with juniors and seniors. I will not be focusing so much on the mechanisms of the writing, so much as the understanding and incorporation of new concepts or connections to concepts we have already covered. I will be using the terminology from the IB Group IV rubrics, since students are already familiar with their terminology and the grading process using these rubrics. The second resource I used to develop this rubric is Porterfield’s Blogging rubric. The reason I chose to base my rubric off of this one is that it does not put a great deal of emphasis on how the student’s write but more on what exactly they are writing about. I want students to connect their ideas to concepts we discuss in class but I would also like for them to seek out new reliable resources that back their opinions and help the student defend their position on a topic. The third resource I used in my rubric development was Tim Horgan’s blogging rubric. While his rubric did focus quite a bit on the construction of the response itself, I did like his description of a student community, especially that it was not just a number of comments but also a style and including links to other student work and the work of professionals.
1 Richardson, Willard (Will) H. (2010-03-01). Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms (Kindle Locations 639-641). SAGE Publications. Kindle Edition.
2 Richardson, Willard (Will) H. (2010-03-01). Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms (Kindle Locations 650-651). SAGE Publications. Kindle Edition.
Richardson has several different reasons for using blogs in the classroom. The reasons I agree with most are first that “weblogs are truly a constructivist tool for learning. Because the content that students and teachers create is on the World Wide Web, it is content that becomes a part of the wider body of knowledge that the Internet represents” (Richardson, Kindle Locations 639-641). One of the major strengths of the Internet is that information is constantly at our fingertips. Aggregating and creating more information should only help more people learn this information. Another reason Richardson agrees with using blogs in the classroom is, “blogs archive the learning that teachers and students do, facilitating all sorts of reflection and metacognitive analysis that was previously much more cumbersome” (Richardson, Kindle Locations 650-651). As a teacher that prefers to grade for growth
in students I have and continue to struggle with the large amount of grading and re-grading this brings to my plate. When students have blogs they can post, critique, and re-post without requiring a teacher to view it multiple times. Even better other students can critique work without the teacher needing to be involved at all and this can lead to a learning experience for both students.
This brings us to the question, how can we use blogs in a classroom? The first step is to consider what a good student blog would look like and how to relay this information to students. After considering the length of time you would like to use the student blog and in what capacity you would like to use it. You will then need to consider how you will grade it. Depending on your students ages’ and writing ability there are many different ways to write a rubric. This particular rubric is for use in an upper level biology class with juniors and seniors. I will not be focusing so much on the mechanisms of the writing, so much as the understanding and incorporation of new concepts or connections to concepts we have already covered. I will be using the terminology from the IB Group IV rubrics, since students are already familiar with their terminology and the grading process using these rubrics. The second resource I used to develop this rubric is Porterfield’s Blogging rubric. The reason I chose to base my rubric off of this one is that it does not put a great deal of emphasis on how the student’s write but more on what exactly they are writing about. I want students to connect their ideas to concepts we discuss in class but I would also like for them to seek out new reliable resources that back their opinions and help the student defend their position on a topic. The third resource I used in my rubric development was Tim Horgan’s blogging rubric. While his rubric did focus quite a bit on the construction of the response itself, I did like his description of a student community, especially that it was not just a number of comments but also a style and including links to other student work and the work of professionals.
1 Richardson, Willard (Will) H. (2010-03-01). Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms (Kindle Locations 639-641). SAGE Publications. Kindle Edition.
2 Richardson, Willard (Will) H. (2010-03-01). Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms (Kindle Locations 650-651). SAGE Publications. Kindle Edition.