Back in the swing
The flu bug hit me with a vengeance. Don’t these bugs know to leave us alone during the summer months? Anyway I got back to work yesterday and now I am playing catch-up.
I have a professor who is interested in putting one of her class assignments totally online. Of course, I think blogs and believe they can fit any need. I created another word press blog to sort of do a small mock-up to give the professor an idea of how this might work. I’ve been thinking about this a bit more this morning and am wondering if SuperGlu or some other tool like this might work for her. I haven’t used it enough to know if it might work or some of you might know of just the Web 2.0 tool that would work. If you have a couple of minutes check out the blog, Explorations to get an idea of what she needs. I would welcome any suggestions. Any ideas?
I think I will use this Explorations blog to try out some things in WordPress and to just brainstorm other project possibilities that professors bring to the table.
June 29th, 2006 at 8:39 pm
Why not encourage her to use Moodle (http://www.moodle.org/ ) to run the course? With the latest version of Moodle, each student gets to create a blog, the professor can run a multitude of discussions, track student “attendance,” create tests/quizzes/wikis, and use the built in scoring/grading system. And you can set up IM for students to interact with each other and or with the teacher. Much more powerful than a blog. Moodle is designed to be a teaching tool. Blogs are designed to be…blogs.
July 1st, 2006 at 12:07 pm
Have you tried TappedIn (http://www.tappedin.org)? This is a site free to educators to create a virtual community for groups, classes, etc. Within the room, you have sections to store files, links, discussions, etc. You can create folders to organize the materials better than just listing them. Also, with the digest on, TappedIn sends an e-mail once daily to those registered to the group with anything new that was added. The discussion area is like the blog with threaded discussions. I am in a group with the Alabama Best Practice Center’s 21st Century Program. We have used this site successfully for one year and plan to continue its use.
July 3rd, 2006 at 8:38 am
Hi
well this comment is not relevant to your post…
I read your blog regularly and find it very informative…
Well I am doing my Masters in ELT in Pakistan and for my final thesis I have chosen the following topic
“Blog writing as an inspirational activity in fostering writing skill”
Please suggest how should I conduct my research and what reasearch questions should I be asking?
Thanks and waiting for your response,
July 5th, 2006 at 8:56 pm
This isn’t the right place for this comment, but I couldn’t get to a comment box on the about page.
I’m a professor in American Indian Studies at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. In the tenure track, I’m writing for education and literature journals, but know that the wider audience I want to reach doesn’t read those journals. They do, however, use the Internet, so I’ve created a blog to reach them. I’m using the blog in the typical way—posting thoughts on my topic, but I’ve also created links to full text on line articles, webpages of Native writers and bloggers, lists of reviews on line, etc.
I’m new to blogging and have a lot to learn, but am enjoying it so far. Feedback on the usefulness (or not!) of my blog is appreciated.
Debbie Reese
Assistant Professor
American Indian Studies
UIUC
blog: http://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com
July 9th, 2006 at 6:25 pm
I love the Esploration blog idea and as I am getting ready to present on blogging to a group of teachers I would like to ask your permission to use that site as an example and also some of your information on blogging that I have found on the web. You have explained so much better than I ever could. I would be more than glad to give credit to you. Dee
July 10th, 2006 at 11:17 am
Certainly you may use the site as an example. Also, check out my pbwiki at http;//adavis.pbwiki.com
It may help, too. Good luck with your presentation!
Best,
Anne