Today begins week eight or the final weeks of my EDTECH597 – Blogging in the Classroom (see EDTECH597 – Blogging In The Classroom). The students this week have a couple of blogging activities and a couple of assignments that they have to complete by the end of the week (i.e., midnight on Sunday).
The readings for this week are:
Kirkup, G. (2010). Academic blogging: Academic practice and academic identity. London Review of Education, 8(1), 75-84.
Ewins, R. (2005). Who are you? Weblogs and academic identity. E-Learning, 2(4), 368-377.
On the blogging front, they simply have to post two entries, of any kind, on any topic that interests them. The first entry should be posted by the end of the day on Wednesday, 25 July and the second entry by the end of the day on Friday, 27 July.
There are also two assignments that are due this week. The first is a Blogging Plan for the next month. Essentially, I borrowed the activities from these three challenges:
- Day Twenty-Three – Thirty Days To A Better Blog
- 31 Days To Build A Better Blog – Day 31
- Day 7 – 7 Days To A Better EduBlog
For the second activity, they have will design an activity that uses blogs in your own classroom. I have left this assignment open-ended to allow for the variety of students and subject areas that may be taught by my BSU graduate students.
Finally, I have asked that they continue to use Twitter throughout the week, and to use the hashtag #EDTECH597 for all class related tweets.
Tomorrow morning I will post a sample entry of the Blogging Plan. On Wednesday morning I will post one sample entry (probably a Commentary Entry). Finally, on Thursday morning I will post a second sample entry (probably a Discussion Entry).
These eight weeks went by fast! I have a question? How do you keep up with the number of comments that we posted? Do you do that through Feed Burner? I have been trying to do more than five comments a week. Hopefully, this is adequate.
Comment by debturner1 — July 23, 2012 @ 6:17 pm |
I am always a week behind the students. For example, tonight I will go back and review your Week 6 activity. I actually go blog-by-blog, and review the comments on each entry for that week. As some of the entries for Week 7 were only posted in the past two or three days, people are still commenting on some of those Week 7 entries so I wait until the end of the next week to review those ones.
It’s also when the last entry this week is due earlier in Week 8, that way folks have a few days to comment before the week is up.
Comment by mkbnl — July 23, 2012 @ 6:23 pm |
This course is helping me consider many different ways and uses of blogs for education. I started a blog before this course began that I want to take in a whole new direction. I was using it to post teaching activities, which was all well and good, but I was missing out on the comments and feedback. Thanks for all the great assignments and ideas to take blogging to a new level.
Comment by Rebecca — July 23, 2012 @ 7:50 pm |
Not a problem Rebecca. I glad that you’ve found it useful. If you’d like to explore this in greater detail, I’d encourage you to go and take any of the Thirty Days To A Better Blog, 31 Days To Build A Better Blog, or 7 Days To A Better EduBlog. I found all three experiences to help me develop as a blogger.
Comment by mkbnl — July 23, 2012 @ 8:16 pm |
I agree that this semester has gone by very quickly. It has also been very busy. Staying up on comments is challenging. Especially for this course, because there are so many blogs we are supposed to be checking and commenting on. That being said, it has been good practice.
Comment by Geoff Brooks — July 24, 2012 @ 5:48 pm |
Thanks for the comments Geoff! The last time I taught this course there were only eight students, which was a lot easier to stay on top of. But I understand the time commitment, as I commented on every single blog entry for the first five and a half week (and interacting with those who responded to those comments). It has been challenging… :)
Comment by mkbnl — July 24, 2012 @ 5:53 pm |
[...] Week 8 [...]
Pingback by EDTECH597 – End Of The Course « Virtual School Meanderings — July 29, 2012 @ 12:01 pm |