In some of my last-minute preparations before “Writing for the Social Sciences” begins Monday evening at CWE, I am now Googling the phrase ’student blogs’ and ‘course blogs.’ Somehow Editor Kate seemed to read my last blog as saying I would be doing a course blog…when I in fact said the opposite. Kate! Was that some kind of reverse psychology? It may have worked.
After having looked more carefully at the text I’m using (Ways of Reading), and thinking that I will probably require at least one single-spaced page of writing for students per week, and in remembering WAC advice to demand drafts drafts drafts, I thought, now this could provide nice material for blogs. And for student directed conversation. I’m going to try it. Why not? So forget what I said in my last post. There will be a course blog. Just one blog I think though, that everyone will have access to if my relatively low-tech self can manage that.
So my plan for the first assignment using the blog will be that students will post with initial thoughts for their upcoming writing assignment, or with responses to their first reading of the required essays. They will have the option to post their own comments, or to respond to someone else’s. I do not plan to grade this other than as a checkmark sort of thing.
Here is some of what I’ve come across through Google…
“Using Blogs to Teach Philosophy“, Academic Commons at The Center for Teaching and Learning, Wabash College
Internet & Society Course, Northwestern University
COMM 3344: Games for the web (Interactive multimedia) Spring 2005, Trinity University
Creating a Writing Course Utilizing Class and Student Blogs, Ritsumeikan University, Tokyo, Japan
And, last from my cautious self, an article from the Student Life publication at Washington University in St. Louis on the question of security risks and student blogs. 
I’m also considering using a blog with one of my 9th grade classes. Some of the questions that I ask myself is: why? what is it about the medium of blogging that makes it a good tool to use with my students? what will blogging accomplish that plain old paper and pen can’t?
one of my answers is that with blogging, there is the ability for students to get instant feedback on their posts, both from their classmates and the internet at large.
another question is logistics…blogging at the high school level is a little more complicated than at the college level since there are issues of accessaibility. i’m confident it will work out, though!
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