Within the first few minutes I found my way to forums/success stories/reflections on student blogging and learned some useful ideas from a teacher trying out blogging for the first time. For example, she tried starting with students writing their blogs around a chosen theme. It’s a debatable choice, but it’s still a concrete idea worth considering. She also grouped her students into “learning circles” so they would be able to focus on commenting on a small group of blogs and so that all students would have comments on their blogs.
Visited a forum on online publishing started by a guy who wants to have his students collaborate with students from around the world. Dozens of educators responded with advice, web apps, etc. Other forums included links to examples of assignments and related articles. Obviously the advantage to all of this is that you can connect with teachers who have similar goals and interests and find out what works and doesn’t work for them.
Then I hopped over to the resources wiki where I found a billion other…um…resources.
It’s overwhelming, but I suppose I get it. First there are the benefits for teachers pedagogically speaking. A place to go to learn and discover and ask questions. Then there are the benefits for the classroom. Starting one of these puppies up on a classroom scale with the kids building relationships and sharing resources and having conversations. Seems pretty unwieldy and like something I’d try down the road after I’ve done some blogging with the kids, built some wikis, maybe tried some Google docs.
But let me head on over to Ning in Education to learn a little more.
Spent some time checking out a few Nings. Many of the high school examples were closed which was a little frustrating. I did click on a Ning called Teachers as Writers, a small group of teachers who like to write. Clearly, it is the common interests of the members that are important. I’m not likely to find much of interest in a Spanish teacher Ning.
As far as the students go, it seems like they’d need pretty clear motivation to build out their Ning. I’m not talking about grades, but expectations, assignments, and tasks that make networking essential to success. I suppose the Ning could in a simpler sense be a place where the students collectively post work and get feedback. It could be a place where four students working together on a project could start a forum and communicate with each other and share ideas and resources.
