Science Blogging, Tweaked

A few weeks ago I posted about how I had my science students blog last trimester.  Since I am starting a new trimester, I have tweaked the assignment a little.

If you didn’t see the earlier post, my students were blogging about current events in science.  They were asked to summarize an article they found and then share how they feel it impacts them, their community, their country, and then the world.  It was very successful with my students, evident in their conversations about what they had blogged about that was happening in the world of science.

This trimester, I have a new set of students, with about five that carry over from before.  I am challenging my students to include a creative commons licensed image to bring more meaning to their posts.   Luckily, the English department at my school does blogging also and requires students to include images licensed this way, so it’s not new to them.

I am also working on setting up a blogging collaboration with another teacher back in Canada.  If all goes to plan, her students will do a blogging assignment very similar to mine.  And then our students will read and comment on each others blogs.  If this works out, I think it will be really neat to see if the perspectives differ from country to country.

The biggest change that I’ve made is that both Mac (the MIT grad student who is collaborating with my class) and myself will be blogging alongside my students.  I’m not entirely sure how they will respond to this, but I’m pretty excited to get in there and blog about current events in science with them.  I think it will be healthy for my students to see us learning alongside with them.

Photo Credit: Wiertz Sébastien via Compfight cc

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Comments 3
  1. ” I think it will be healthy for my students to see us learning alongside with them.”

    You’re on the right track here.

    Be up front with the kids. Especially show them that you can change an opinion if their feedback in comments leads to that.

  2. Hey Mr. Webb! It has been a privilege to read your blog and see all that you are doing in St. Louis! I am currently in a ECOMP class where I have been introduced into the world of blogging. In connection with that and with what I’ve read in your blog it is an excellent tool to engage students especially in current events. I appreciate how you ensure that students are using creative commons licensed images which is fundamental in our responsibly as digital citizens! Miss ya! Cheers!

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