As I am not a teacher, I have no experience with using blogs as an educational tool, though I can definitely see the potential. Normally, my blogs here were either to turn in assignments, one of which was a technology-related class, and a couple others for me to post random thoughts regarding politics, movies or such. I am familiar with how to customize a blog, including modifying the HTML script to add new features, videos, pictures, documents etc. Hence why I think blogs have potential to be a very resourceful tool in the educational process. Though I'd keep the changes simple as too much complexity can make it confusing to look at.
A shared class blog would definitely help, as would each student having their own personalized blogs with which to gauge and review other people's work. Though of course, the trick would be instructing them on how to manage the different customization available on Blogger and to use their time blogging wisely, as with all social media.
different schools will have different ideas about whether or not blogs are acceptable. blogger requires everyone to have a google acct, which isn't going to fly in many schools, but possibly you could create one account and have students all use that one acct in class with you logging on. That may sit better with administration, but always good to check first.
ReplyDeleteBo:
ReplyDeleteYour blog looked awesome and for someone who is not an "official teacher" you seem to know what you are doing. I would think that a regular teacher would have to spend hours setting up a blog but then it would probably be easy to maintain once it is in place.