Right now I have so many ideas that I want to test out with using blogs in my classroom and trying out more with wikis. This past school year I used a wiki based out of the "Wetpaint" website, but it wasn't working as well as I had hoped. At first it was working really well, I was able to use "docstoc" to embed all documents, embed my hw calendar and some other basics. I used it for a semester, but was discouraged by some of the semi-suggestive ads - they did get a little better after I emailed the admin, but not always - also after a while "docstoc" links stopped working. After a semester I switched to using a "googlesite" which I really like but last year it didn't have the potential for conversation between students. I do like what I am seeing about using wikis as ways for students to share their projects, so I will need to explore some of the other sites - I do like the PBworks for our class website.
I was excited to see that "Blogger" was connected to google as I was reading the other day. Our school district has an account with Google where we have access to google-sites and all sorts of other really cool stuff and I saw that there was a way embed a blogger into a google-site!! If this is the case (I'm playing with this tomorrow) I think this will be my final project - I'll add it to our class list after making sure that it works as I would like it to. Also another classmate mentioned this a blog (I'm really sorry, I can't recall who...the downside of screen-names!!) - but I would love to adjust some homework to be based on blogging - go home and comment on a blog, or on a classmate's comment, just to start some conversation outside of class. The student's comment about being able to process prior to commenting in the article "Creating a Classroom Blog" in Science 2.0 by our Professor Brunsell and Martin Horejsi convinced me that there is some incredible value in blogging. It can give the students that don't participate in class a voice - which to me is invaluable.
I'm really looking forward to seeing how blogging and wikis can enhance my physics classes this year and help my students participate and dive into physics even more.
I'm interested to see how embedding a blog into a google site works for you. Our district also has a Google account, but after trying to make it interactive last year I decided to strike off on my own, which will be the focus of my final project as well. I've been trying to play with the "wiki" option through google sites, but really don't see how it's different than a regular google site.
ReplyDeleteI will definitely post more as I work with it. The blog embedded seems to work quite well. I hope the students find it as easy to use! We'll see....
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