I have thought about blogging for myself for quite some time. Many years, in fact. I've heard about the benefits of using this method to reflect on professional life in an organized and open manner, but had never actually gotten around to it. Well, this my blog and this is me reflecting. My focus this time around will be on student blogs. The goal behind this type of activity is similar for students as it can be for adults. Students get the opportunity to reflect on what they have learned and apply that knowledge to different situations. It also can help to develop critical thinking and an awareness of the important qualities of digital citizenship. Students in my Marine Biology class have technically been writing blogs since I launched the course in 2002. These are current events that the students write a short summary about and then spend significantly more time analyzing and reflecting upon the topic. The reflection requires the students to think about the significance of the topic, how they feel about it, how it relates to class topics or potential solutions to problems. In the beginning this was low-tech and students typed their write up, but submitted their assignment on paper and later digitally as our school adopted a LMS. When we added AP Environmental Science to our curricular options, this assignment offered a good opportunity for students to apply knowledge, a key component of the AP exam. Throughout a semester, a student would complete ten of these write ups on articles of their choosing. As with any student work, the results varied greatly in the depth with which students considered their topics. Over time, the instructions for this activity have been revised to be as specific as possible and account for the new and unusual things that students happen to do. I even include possible questions to answer in their reflections to try to provide inspiration for students who may not know quite where to start. While reading the students' work, I have always provided feedback on things they did well and how they could improve for the next time. As often seems to happen, however, students generally only look at the grade and immediately move on. Would it be possible to maintain the essence of the assignment, but impress the importance of critically thinking about a topic? In order to try to bring this assignment to the next level there were a couple of things I wanted to try. First, I cut the number of write ups in half. This certainly would make my life easier not having to read as many assignments, but I also thought that this would give students more time to put the effort into really developing a well-thought-out response. It certainly lightened my load, though I feel that I have been able to give more detailed and directed feedback. On the student side, however, I don't feel that there has been much change. While there are some that are well written, I know many are done hurriedly at the last minute or even late. The second step was to have their work be in the public eye by having the students start actual online blogs. Since we are a Google school I wanted a system that the students could easily login to. We are also a 1:1 iPad school, so I wanted something that had a app that is relatively easy to use on an iPad. I explored a number of the usual suspects including Blogger and Word Press, but I ultimately settled on Weebly. For me it would allow the students to produce a nice looking site with the ease of a mostly drag and drop UI. (Some settings and options are not available in the app and need to be initially set up on either a computer or a flash enabled browser.) Students still start by typing their write up in either Google Docs or Pages before pasting it in their blog. Their blog is enhanced by including a relevant image. Their final step is to promote their blog post by announcing it with a Twitter post. As the evolution of this student project continues, a number of questions arise for me to consider about the future of this assignment:
Below you can find links to the blogs that my Marine Biology students created this semester as well as the instructions that are provided. Student Blogs:
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