What discoveries did you make as you were looking through the various examples of educational blogs? Click on the comment link below, and enter the information into the fields. Feel free to copy/paste links to these blogs so that others can see the blog you are referencing in your comments. 
Also include any thoughts, ideas or questions that may have crossed your mind during your investigation.
Blogs in the classroom… Sunday, February 18, 2007
Have Your Saycomments
20 Feb 2007 at 11:01 am | #
they all look good but how is security handled? how do you prevent someone from posting as someone else? how is language handled?
20 Feb 2007 at 11:01 am | #
A few of the blogs I viewed contained pictures, videos, and audio. These were the ones I most enjoyed because it made you feel “face to face” with the blogger. I appreciate the effort to create a more personalized blog, but I realize the time it does take and I question the spontineity.
20 Feb 2007 at 11:01 am | #
When I viewed the blog I felt it provided a lot of beneficial feedback to the students. The blog allowed for ongoing communication between the teacher and the student where the student was able to analyze the comments and refer directly to their own personal work to make connections. When teachers have to verbalize their comments to student work I am not sure the students always understand what the teacher is referring to, and may just be saying okay, yeah, sure…..which really lowers student learning.
20 Feb 2007 at 11:01 am | #
It was interesting to see RJ’s page. What a great way to stay connected to students through technology. She recently updated with pictures of students from an activity in Harrisburg. I read some of her student’s postings and was very impressed with the quality of their writing.
The format of the web page was user friendly.
20 Feb 2007 at 11:09 am | #
I think this can be good because the students can have access at the home or anywhere an internet connection is.
20 Feb 2007 at 11:11 am | #
The only blog I visited was RJ’s. It was quite impressive.
I am a quiet person. I learn more by listening than by talking. I also need more time to formulate a thought than a face-to-face conversations provides. I would much rather communicate electronically because it gives me all the time I need to express my thoughts.
I do like a discussion board better than a blog because I like the threaded organization of a discussion board.
12 Apr 2007 at 10:14 am | #
http://mrardito.edublogs.org/2006/10/17/8th-grade-le-period-9-weekly-science-article-report-5/#comments
This was an interesting blog. Students found, summarized, and evaluated a current science article. They were also able to comment on each others postings. I think that this would work well and could be adapted in many ways. It gives the students a concrete assignment and allows them to pursue their own interests at the same time.
12 Apr 2007 at 10:30 am | #
Looks grab the reader. There were many sites that were appealing to the eye. These sites will hook the learner when responding. As we develop blogs for our classroom, I believe we need to take this into account. Pictures, podcasts and interactive multimedia needs to be present on the pages.
12 Apr 2007 at 10:32 am | #
We found many interesting blogs. Unfortunately many blogs were not relevant to us at this moment in time. Quite a few blogs we visited were related to science and social studies. Adding pictures to the blogs made them more interesting. One of the sites we visited had video clips that were hard to get out of and sound that could not be turned off or down which was annoying because we didn’t have an external mouse available.
12 Apr 2007 at 10:36 am | #
http://egyptdays.blogspot.com/
It appears that this blog has posts by the teacher and only the teacher. The post has student work included (probably retyped by the teacher, is my guess). Then parents and other teachers commented. Is that the impression you get?
I liked the blog question list posted on http://mr-fisher.edublogs.org/. It was intended to focus the students’ comments, but was probably the same list that the teacher had in mind when he was developing the blog to focus himself.
That blog had pictures, text, podcasts, student work samples…it had everything!
Those two blogs got me to thinking about how blogs could be use to bring the parents into the classroom. Not only could they see their child’s work, but they could be allowed to comment!
Opening your students’ blogs to commenting from the rest of the world adds the burden of time onto the teacher (regularly moderating the board so that nothing inappropriate appears), but creates tremendous opportunities for other expert opinions.
—Dave
12 Apr 2007 at 10:38 am | #
We appreciated the time given to explore the blogs. We do not take enough time to look at resources already available to us. We liked the way the teacher set up the Egypt blog. It was interested how she posted, but gave credit to student authors. SHe then invited parents to comment. This is a valuable component for students and teachers. It provides an authentic home-school connection.
This time served as a springboard for us. We have limited experience with blogs but recognize their value as a collaborative, thought-provoking tool. To be most effective, we think we need increased access. Blogging in isolation in the computer lab is not as effective as using it in real time in the classroom environment.
12 Apr 2007 at 10:41 am | #
John: I think security is the scariest part. You’d have to have the teacher moderate regularly or isolate the students through password protection.
If students are to develop computer literacy skills to the fullest, they’ll eventually need to be exposed to the bad side of the internet. Balancing the need to protect our students with accidental exposure to “the Dark Side” is a challenge that our generation of teachers will struggle to meet.
12 Apr 2007 at 10:41 am | #
After viewing several blogs, it appears that some were well thought out in terms of having a definite structure that allowed students to make useful contributions. When students have to reflect or comment about things that tap into their thinking or previous learning, those blogs appeared more useful. I wasn’t impressed with the type of blog that had kids describe the classrooms activities. When you can add a reflection component, it opens up a different level of usefulness.