Next November, I will be presenting a session on using blogs and wikis in the classroom at the annual GISA conference. I will fully admit that I’m no expert, though I’m the only teacher at my school currently doing anything with blogs or wikis. It made me think perhaps not too many Georgia teachers know what’s out there or how to use it.
One of the things I want to do for next year is make blogging/using the wiki a requirement in my class. Perhaps students should select one piece of writing from their portfolios that they are required to post? I was also thinking of posing questions for discussion. I think perhaps my current students don’t get much out of the blog/wiki I have because they are not required to use it. There are a handful that enjoy having the tool at their disposal. I think my classroom blog could be much better, though. I will say that posting assignments has been great for me in terms of communicating with students and parents. No excuses!
I have been keeping up with a lot of you who use blogs or wikis with your classes, but I am certainly open to suggestions. I want to have some good ideas to present come November. Please leave comments!
Check out the NYCWP blogs and what some teachers have been doing. NYCWP blog. If you wanted to email someone who does a TON of work in this area, I would recommend Paul Allison, who can be found here. Good luck at the conference!
I look forward to following your progress. I, too, have been using blogs in my classroom this year. Congratulations on your GISA conference presentation. May it bring more teacher bloggers into the fold! 🙂
Check out Bernie Dodge's work at SDSU. He started the WebQuest and is doing mega work including courses and graduate work. He's a professor and amazing.