{"id":273,"date":"2007-03-22T21:24:53","date_gmt":"2007-03-23T04:24:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2007\/03\/22\/using-blogs-in-school\/"},"modified":"2007-10-23T13:56:25","modified_gmt":"2007-10-23T18:56:25","slug":"using-blogs-in-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2007\/03\/using-blogs-in-school\/","title":{"rendered":"Using blogs in school"},"content":{"rendered":"

I think this is a great idea<\/a>. Dave at academhack<\/a> lays out the way he’s using a blog to help students refine their paper topics through peer discussion. That’s only one of the applications blogs could have for a classroom, though. He briefly mentions posting syllabi, assignments, updates, links, etc. True, there is software in schools that do some of this stuff–we use Blackboard, and he also mentions one called WebCT, which I don’t know about, but let me tell you something. Blackboard is crap, man. I hate it. It’s not intuitive (is the syllabus under “assignments” or “class documents”? What about assigned readings?), only the teacher can update it (with things like the link I e-mailed my teacher upon her request a month ago and still isn’t up), it’s fugly, and it’s just…very institutional. I know, I know, part of my resistance to Blackboard is my innate rebellion against whatever the school (or business, or whatever) provides, but part of it is also that it’s crap.<\/p>\n

Another good application of blogs, similar to the one Dave talks about, is a reading-journal type thing. Last semester I had a class with an e-mail reading journal, which was basically “write a couple of paragraphs about each assigned reading and e-mail them to the teacher.” I loved doing this, because I love writing about what I’m reading, especially in less-formal-than-an-essay ways. The only thing that would’ve made it better is more interaction between students–a way to read and respond to other students’ written thoughts and get feedback on your own. I suppose the downside would be that not every student would feel comfortable sharing their thoughts with the whole class (I wouldn’t have in college, a lot of the time), and I’d want to figure out a way to accommodate that (or overcome it), but for those who did want to continue the discussion further, it would be outstanding. I’m torn on this, really, because I have always hated peer-review sessions; for some reason, teachers threaten me less than peers. But I think in written format, I’d have been fine. I’m sure there are other students like me who shy away from speaking in class, but might blossom if given less threatening ways to interact.<\/p>\n

If I were going to teach ever, I’d have blogs and wikis all over the place. This sort of thing really excites me. I wish there were a way I could teach without the whole, you know, having to teach part. I would explain my feelings on teaching better if they were clear to me, but they’re not, so I can’t.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I think this is a great idea. Dave at academhack lays out the way he’s using a blog to help students refine their paper topics through peer discussion. That’s only one of the applications blogs could have for a classroom, though. He briefly mentions posting syllabi, assignments, updates, links, etc. True, there is software in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[40],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":29830,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2012\/01\/my-2011-in-music-honorable-mentions\/","url_meta":{"origin":273,"position":0},"title":"My 2011 in Music: Honorable Mentions","author":"Jandy","date":"January 3, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Over the next few days, I'll be listing out my favorite things of 2011 - music, movies, games. I'd do books, but I only made it through a pitiful number of books in 2011, not even worth listing. All this stuff is listed on my 2011 Favorites page, which I've\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Music"","block_context":{"text":"Music","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/2011-in-Review-music.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":35445,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2016\/01\/challenge-week-2-the-last-five-years\/","url_meta":{"origin":273,"position":1},"title":"Challenge Week 2: The Last Five Years","author":"Jandy","date":"January 15, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been meaning to see this since I first heard it existed (in movie form; I don't follow musical theatre enough to know the play), so I'm really glad to have the push to get to it. I'm a big fan of movie musicals, especially ones confident enough to maintain\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2016 Movie Challenge"","block_context":{"text":"2016 Movie Challenge","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/2016-movie-challenge\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/tf-feat-sunset.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":35633,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2016\/03\/challenge-week-9-mauvais-sang\/","url_meta":{"origin":273,"position":2},"title":"Challenge Week 9: Mauvais Sang","author":"Jandy","date":"March 5, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"The Roku description of this movie goes like this: \"In the near future, Paris is devastated by a new AIDS-like disease that infects people who have sex without being in love. Aging thieves Marc and Hans develop a plan to steal a newly devised serum that combats the disease.\" So\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2016 Movie Challenge"","block_context":{"text":"2016 Movie Challenge","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/2016-movie-challenge\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/tf-shaving-cream.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":116,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2006\/10\/banning-fahrenheit-451\/","url_meta":{"origin":273,"position":3},"title":"Banning Fahrenheit 451","author":"Jandy","date":"October 5, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Last week, the father of a 15-year-old girl near Houston complained to her high school about one of the reading assignments and felt it should be banned from the school. The book? Ray Bradbury's anti-censorship novel Fahrenheit 451. And, last week was Banned Books Week, too. Ironic. Houston Community Newspapers\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books and Reading"","block_context":{"text":"Books and Reading","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":247,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2007\/03\/forming-communities-and-keeping-up\/","url_meta":{"origin":273,"position":4},"title":"Forming communities and keeping up","author":"Jandy","date":"March 3, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Mark responded to my post on blogging and 18th century periodicals in a couple of places. After quoting the near-last paragraph of my post, arguing that the major difference between 18th century periodicals and blogging is the low barrier to entry that blogging exhibits, he says: While I agree with\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books and Reading"","block_context":{"text":"Books and Reading","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":225,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2007\/02\/blogs-and-18th-century-periodicals\/","url_meta":{"origin":273,"position":5},"title":"Blogs and 18th Century Periodicals","author":"Jandy","date":"February 16, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Occasioned by this post over at Mumblety-Peg (especially the comment that blogging is a poor medium for expressing ideas), and encouraged by the many dozens of pages I've been reading in 18th-century literary and aesthetic culture (for a paper I should be writing now instead of this), a few thoughts\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books and Reading"","block_context":{"text":"Books and Reading","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}