Create a Class Blog
It’s 2011 and blogs have been around for quite a while. Class blogs can help students analyze, collaborate, and write for an authentic audience. There are many stages. You can have a blog (such as this one) which has posts and invites comments. Better yet is have a blog where the teacher is the administrator and the students are users, with lesser rights. The key is to add users and then use categories, labels, or tags to identify their posts. It depends on which blog site you use that determines how you do this. The best way to identify student posts is to use their first name and a number relating to their last name. For example, the first student on your list is Annie Adams, she will identify all of her posts by a category or label such as 01 Annie. Parents will be happy the last name is kept out of the site. Another good idea is to develop an acceptable use page. Do this with your students.
Although I don’t have a class to teach, I’ve tried out some of the bigger sites and have some comments.
Blogger – great tie in with google. Only two sets of admin levels though and I couldn’t see how to preview the posts first. Use labels as identifiers. Here is an example: Ridge Blogs.
Edublogs – they say all the right things and are powered by wordpress. Users are added easily by adding a + after the first part of your own email address, e.g., ridgelibrary+user01@gmail.com, and so on. You can then change the display name. Use categories to identify student posts. The annoying part is the ad right smack on top of every new post. Check it out at Ridge Blogs.
WordPress – this blog. No annoying ad. But a little tougher to add users. You can invite them and they then make an account, with or without their own blog. Several levels of membership. I like it if just to avoid the ad.
Ning – a more complete social networking site. Not free but you can apply to have Pearson pay for it. I am still waiting for my free Ning. I’ll report on it if I get it at a later date.
The final stage is to have each student have their own blog.
