Middle+School+Blogs


 * Part 1: Project Summary **

Plan a lesson, a series of lessons or a unit that implements technology to enhance student learning. Prepare a written summary of your project that includes the components listed below.

** Content ** ** (Ideas for Blogging assignments in Math and Science) **





At the bottom of the page are samples of students who completed an Assignment in Mr. Kitchen's class where they had to find geometric shapes in real life, describe the properties of each shape and then comment on other student's posting with one thing they liked about the post and one thing they thought the student could improve on.

** Pedagogy **

Blogging will be used during this project for student to collaborate together about the content presented. Allowing the students to discuss and critique each others work helps to increase the community within the classroom. Increasing community within a classroom can help to decrease discipline issues and increase motivation for learning. ** Technology **

We currently endorse using [|Weebly.com] but other blogging products are completely usable. The reasons we chose Weebly: (1) You can easily add large amounts of students (2) You can make student blogs public or private (3) All comments can be set to be approved before posting (4) Can be used to blog or just create content pages (5) Easy use drag and drop interface. Weebly does only allow you to create 50 student accounts free, but if you invite other e-mail addresses you get 10 free student accounts.

** Part 2: Timeline **

Define your project timeline with implementation and next steps. 1. Teacher sets up blog (Time = 15 minutes) 2. Teacher assigns blog accounts to the students (Time = 1-2 hours) 3. Teacher sets up assignment (Time= 30 minutes) 4. Teacher introduces blogging to students (Times equals 1-2 class periods depending on past exposure) 5. Teacher allows students to complete blog assignment (1-2 periods) 6. Teacher allows students to visit each others blogs in order to complete an additional assignment (1-2 period) The students do not have to work in consecutive periods to complete this project. Teachers my want student to complete primary blog assignment, then provide more instruction or remediation, then revisit the blog at a later point to reinforce content. See content word documents.

** Part 4: Student Examples ** @http://kmclemore16.weebly.com/1/post/2011/03/shapes-in-life-and-why-are-they-that-shape.html

@http://ablair16.weebly.com/1/post/2011/01/assignment-8.html

@http://lglass16.weebly.com/1/post/2011/01/post-title-click-and-type-to-edit.html