Blog Project Reflection

1. I encountered several problems with setting up my blog. To begin, it took me some time to get my head around the design of the overall assignment. I wasn’t quite sure how best to get student contributions. I originally thought to have students set up their own blogs, with a Google Reader as the class feed. But the assignment specifications seemed to indicate a wish for me to set up a blog site for use. It took me some research time on the Blogger site to figure out how best to incorporate student contributions. Eventually, I decided to make students limited authors to the site. This will require them to sign their posts, but I feel it will work well. I may yet have older students set up their own blog sites in the future. The only other real issue was overcoming the learning curve on gadget use. I didn’t know much about how to incorporate all the needed gadgets. I learned quite a bit and incorporated many useful links to the blog.

2. I really liked the project. I had come to think of blogs as a more limited feature for classroom use, but I have learned a great deal about setting up multiple pages and incorporating links to key sites and documents. Incorporating Google Docs really helped me to link to everything students would need to complete their blog posts independently. The colleague and students I got feedback from thought it was a pretty neat idea. No one expressed any concerns over students posting to the internet. Having designed the blog, I now feel confident that blogging can be used without jeopardizing student privacy. There is still some tweaking to be done to the finished product, but the response has been very positive all the way around.


3. I am not able to try the project in my classroom, as school is already out for summer. I am certain, from experience, that I will need to modify the lesson plans. I almost always modify the timeline in some way – spending a little more time on the areas that present a challenge. It is hard, with my student population in particular, to accurately predict how quickly they will move through a new concept/process. I tend to be super flexible in that regard, preferring to take the additional time to ensure mastery at the outset. I do not foresee modifying the assignment requirements. I rarely reduce the workload, preferring instead to boost student independence.


4. I will definitely be using this project in my classrooms next year.


5. Final thoughts: shame on me for not incorporating all the technology that I’ve been learning earlier.