Best tool for publishing student work....

Blogging, blogging, blogging..

So, was my reply to a query on classroom2.0 recently about the best tool for online student publishing. The lively discussion has centred primarily around blogs, wikis and nings but I would like to justify in this post, the use of blogging as the number 1 tool.

A student blog is a far more personal interactive website than any of the others. It may be used for journal entries and for publishing school work across many subject areas. It becomes the student's own webpage, a page that will not be lost in lockers, school bags, left in the classroom, on the table, forgotten about etc.

Students love to have their own space and love to make it look good. On their personal blogs, they can feature and publish:-

- their class work eg English stories (chacha, year 7) LOTE sample 1 (voki by fluorgreen, year 9) sample 2 (Shezza yr8),
- home economics (leecie yr 10) and school work in general (skippy, grade 6)
- Display work eg MS Office documents (Jade, year 8 student)
- Spreadsheet work
- art work eg sample 1 (Che grade 5) and sample 2 (Tadfish, year 8)
- digital storytelling grade 6
- podcasts
- photography (yr 7 honka) and
- mind mapping (grade 6 skippy)
- Show extracurricula activities eg school camps sample 1 and sample 2- Record outside school involvement
- reflections (yr 9 flurogreen)
- work students want to voluntarily put up sample 1 and sample 2 grade 6 student
The list could go on, but publishing by this means gives parents, grandparents and other teachers' access. It allows students to connect, communicate and collaborate with the globe. What greater audience could students have for their work. Comments allow feedback, communication, reflection etc/

Tags: blogging, blogs, online, publishing, student, tools, web2.0

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Comment by Nancy Bosch on August 24, 2008 at 8:22am: Nice job, great student work. Do you facilitate all these blogs? I have a hard enough time keeping up with one. N

Comment by Anne Mirtschin on August 24, 2008 at 2:53pm: Hi Nancy, I do try and facilitate all these blogs but it is hard work. I have joint administrative rights so the students do most of the work but I try and comment on one class each week so that the posts are being monitored. Some of our other teachers comment on them periodically as well.

Comment by Wendy Smith on February 21, 2009 at 10:12am: Hello. I feel like I am just about ready psychologically to implement blogs in one of my sections. I have two logistical questions that are probably the last stumbling blocks. Platform and Assessment. What do you use as your primary vehicle for setting up student blogs and how do you asses their contributions? Do you have a rubric? Do you assess holistically, by assignment, by time period? I would really appreciate your response and any relevant links that speak to assessment practices. Also, for the platform, I would really like to find a platform that allows students to post video, audio, and MS office docs (including PowerPoint and Audacity files) to their blog posts. Thank you in advance for responding to this newbie question.

Comment by Nancy Bosch on February 21, 2009 at 1:40pm: I've blog recently about my fristration with blogging, there is a link to Konrad's discussion on assessment in my most recent post. http://anotsodifferentplace.blogspot.com I use Blogger (no brainer) for my teacher blogs and Drupal (harder) for our classroom blog http://areallydifferentplace.org.