Questions more commonly known as Whining
I have quite a few questions about using blogs for education in a high school district that does not support social networking. Number one is … will my students be able to use or even view edublog sites? And if they can view it in September, will it still be available in June? But that is enough negativity for a Saturday morning.
Students and Classes
My students are digital photography and digital art students. I’m optimistic that when they walk into the classroom in September they are already interested in using technology. Alright, honestly there are some who take the class because they are afraid to draw in a “regular” art class, or it may be the only elective that fits in their schedule. The digital art class is an introductory class filled mostly with ninth grade boys. The gender balance is better in photography class and the students range from tenth to twelfth graders.
Planning for the future
I’m already creating a moodle to organize and manage my ‘08-’09 classes and assets. Last year I used dreamweaver and created a daily calendar for each class to share objectives and milestones. I may use a blog this year to share the same information. The advantage is that students would be able to respond directly with questions and additional information.
I’ve used wikis, blogs and podcasts as resources in my classes. Because of limitations by my district, I usually download the resources to my laptop at home and project them in the classroom.
I’m considering blogging for student journals or for students to respond to visual cues. My students often complain about writing assignments in an art class – it’s supposed to be a fun class, not an English class. Perhaps the technology pipeline will make writing more attractive for my non-writers.
Hi Trina,
Thanks for the introduction. You raise a valid point. I can’t promise that edublogs.org won’t be banned in your district, but it sounds like you’ve got web hosting and a domain name of your own.
You could install wordpress on it. I doubt that administrators would ban your own personal site.
I like your idea about using your blog site for writing assignments in your art class.. My theory is that students would probably write more content and use better grammar online because of the “peer critics” that may be reading all the posts!
Trina – I like your idea about the use of your blog site. I would love to know how teaching digital photography is, sounds really fun!
I like you layout.
I’m also worried about our net filter in our school which tends to block everything. You know how the feds are.
Hopefully there can be alternatives offered.
Your site is great. You have more than one post, awesome.