To have a class blog or not to have a class blog

I’m toying with the idea of having a class blog next year.

I’m still not sure.

The questions I’m asking myself are:

1. How will this improve student learning?
2. Do the students want to do this? What if they don’t? Should that matter?
3. Many technical issues – but those I can deal with, if it improves student learning.

I’m still not sure. I keep asking myself why I/we would do this. I don’t want to do it just because we can. That isn’t good enough.

Some of my other concerns: I strive to create an environment in the classroom where students feel free to make mistakes, ask questions, and share their thinking. How will putting this online change that?

In our class, lots of initial thoughts go up on the board or the document camera. Often they’re wrong. But we talk about it, look at other methods/options, and then fix it. Do we put up the “wrong” work too on the class blog? Will students want to put that out there? Is it fair for me to ask them to do so?

If we only post the “right” final answers, what does that say about the value of the initial missteps that led us to them? How does that help anyone learn from the misconceptions?

I’ve been thinking about these questions a lot. I still don’t have answers.

Note: If I do this, I’d like to structure the blog much like Darren does, with students taking turns writing the daily posts. Here is his current class blog for AP Calc.

Reviewing

It is that time of the year again – review.

I’m not a huge fan of review packets. Last year I tried review stations. It was okay, I’ll probably do it again at some point.

I tried something new with the seniors this year. We generated a list of topics at the end of class yesterday (well, in 2 of 3 classes – one class ran out of time). Today when they walked in, the topics were listed on the screen. In partners they chose a topic, we went to the computer lab, and they created the review questions.

I did this in January and it worked well. That time I had them create them by hand and I typed them all up. I think this way worked much better – and didn’t take any more time.

When they asked how many to create, I replied however many you think people will need to do to understand the topic.

When they asked what kind of questions to ask, I returned with another question, what do you think I’ll ask on an exam?

They learned how to use equation editor. They learned how to use grapher¹. They carefully thought about the questions they were asking. They created questions working from graphs, tables, and equations.

I consolidated each period’s questions into one document which they’ll work on tomorrow. The students that created the questions will be responsible for answering any questions on that topic.

¹ a few were temporarily distracted by playing with Grapher (can anyone help with this 3D graphing question?)