Day 4--Edublogs

I decided that I was going to use a class blog to post writing assignments in my writing-heavy language lab class. I used Edublogs to host my blog. At some point we may go to a learning management system, but for now the blog will do. I created my blog in Edublogs with my students in mind. First, I wanted to be able to share writing assignments online in a method that was simple. I also wanted students to become familiar with the backend on blogging such as using the features on a dashboard.

I had students watch me demonstrate how to register for a blog through Edublogs. Then students set up their own blogs. Once they were logged in, they went to my teacher blog and followed me. My new blog posts pop up in a reader on their dashboard. Now, they never have to go directly to my blog again. I posted my first assignment to my blog which showed up in students' readers. They then read through the directions and copy/paste important information from my blog to theirs.

For example, the first writing workout was a series of questions about who was important to them, what they enjoyed doing, and where they saw themselves in the future. Students use their blogs as writing notebooks which means that they do not have to use complete sentences or proper grammar. The terms of service of Edublogs do require appropriate language, however.

Students can organize their blogs in several ways. Students use the days' date as their blog title. They can add details if they choose. All blogs are automatically categorized as uncategorized. Students create a category called "love it" to categorize writing that they want to work on more or share in conferences. Students can also tag blogs so that they remember what their writing topic was about.