Journal #3

Journal #3
“Five Don’ts of Classroom Blogging”
By: Julie Sturgeon

In this article, Julie Sturgeon discusses the benefits and dangers of having students participate in classroom blogging. She interviews three people and talks about the five don’ts in classroom blogging activity. She starts off with interviewing Brock Dubbels, high school engineering teacher, who talks about his experience with classroom blogging. Mr. Dubbels believes students perform better when they know that their peers will be judging their work and not just the teacher. He also warns that students will push the line on what they are allowed to say over the internet. Thus, teachers need to be careful, but the reward in the end is worth the risk. Julie Sturgeon’s first don’t is to not just dive in. It is very important for teachers to set up guidelines and rules for the student. Once the parameters are set, the students know the realm in which they can operate on the blog. Blogging serves as a good way for students to get excited about writing non-fiction. Most students feel that writing is a very boring topic. She then goes on to advise teachers to not confuse blogging with social networking. Blogging is different from sites like MySpace and face book. Blogging is about students helping each other get through coursework while MySpace is just a social networking site for play and fun. The author then confides in Jeffrey Yan, CEO of Digication, who warns for teachers not just jump into the free blogging sites. Class Blogmeister, is a very easy blogger tool that helps filter information and is more suitable for a classroom setting. Also, the author suggests that blogs should not be sequential. Instead, they should be organized by topic. This makes it easier for students to organize and go back over their work that was done a while ago. Sturgeon’s last piece of advice suggest that teachers should also be participating in the blogging. She advises not to let students be the only bloggers.


Questions:

1. What about students who do not have access to a computer at home?

Students should be able to have access to computers on campus. Furthermore, students can sign into the blog webpage on any computer. They do not need just their computer at home. Thus, computers can be accessed anywhere. This includes the computer lab, library, or even a friend’s house.

2. How do you prevent students from copying what other students say?

Students should not be scolded for their responses. The main point of blogs is for students to practice writing thoughtfully and critically about the subject of interest. Also, blogs allow students to read their peer responses. Since these peer responses are viewable, students should be asked to pose responses. Teachers should review the blogs and should notify students if the educator is suspicious of copying and pasting by the student.