What the blog

 

I have been using blogs in my classroom for the past couple years and now that I have adopted Wix as the primary platform, it has become even easier for me. I have used them as an inquiry blog where they did the majority of their research, I have used them as personal blogs, I have used them more for a community forum, and I have done a combination of all of those methods. What I have found (regardless  of the method), that the students love the personal space to get to know their voice and they shine in their writing. 

 

Most of the prompts that I have them do are class related and I create the topics. However, they always get the freedom to go where they want to go within the topic itself and they get two wildcard options.

 

They also are responsible for responding to each other in the blogs. In order to make access easier for them, I create a Padlet that I embed on Moodle (see below) so they can get to each other's websites quickly. In order to get thoughtful and critical responses, the students must first say something that they like about the post and then they can ask a question, extend an idea, pose a problem, make a connection, or complicate an issue. Even though it is a bit prescriptive, I have found that their responses are much richer by asking them to respond in this way.