Look! A new blog. And as always a promissory note to my readers (my poor teacher and classmates):
I do solemnly swear to write interestingly, truthfully and often sarcastically to ensure that you don't feel like you just wasted 5-10 minutes of your life. :)
Furthermore, here's the questions for this activity from Web 2.0; how-to for educations, Chapter 1, blogs:
1. In reference to the 6 Assessment Points for student blogs, how would you, as an educator, add or take away from this list?
As an educator I would add that their blog has to be audience appropriate or audience geared. This means trying to connect with your audience which is what I think blogs are for. I also think that, unless commenting is mandatory for the class to do to each, the sixth point, "To what extent did their blog generate real discussion.", is a little too much to ask of a student who is more than likely doing a blog for the first time in a professional manner. I think there are a lot of good, professional, well-written blogs that are never looked at by other people so trying to decide if it started a real discussion is a bit of an unreachable goal for most. Also, a really bad blog can create discussion and that isn't necessarily using the technology to the extent that a classroom or student would benefit from.
2. If you were obligated to use a blog, how would you use one in your unique educational setting?
As a math teacher I think that the average high school math class doesn't pay attention to where math comes from. I'm majoring in math and understand it, I believe, really well and yet I have no idea who thought up y=mx+b. I know a little bit of history about calculus but that's it. I think that a blog would be a great place to write down where math concepts they have learned come from and then find an article that shows a real world application of that math topic.
An now, one of my favorite web comics:
