Student Blog Sharing

Please share your blog web address (http://...) in the comments below.

New to educational blogging? A few considerations

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For many (all?) of you, this will be your first attempt at writing in the form of a blog.  While blogs exist for numerous purposes today, educators typically use blogging as a platform to do one or more of the following:  Engage students in learning/reading/writing, share about class content/activities with students/parents, share resources with students and/or other educators, and share personal opinions related to educational issues.

A few rules for the road to make your journey into blogging a little smoother:

• Make your title both catchy and professional.
• Use formatting to enhance, not distract from, your message.  A few common mistakes to avoid: Using a dark background with white text (difficult to read); using a complicated font style; using excessive images; focusing more on the style elements than on creating quality content.
• Keep it simple!  One image plus a few short paragraphs of text make for a great post. Depending on your message, quality and conciseness in blogging are often more valued than quantity.  Increase the readability of your posts by using headings, bullet points, boldfaced text, and/or varying font size to emphasize certain parts.
• Always give credit to anything that is not your own creation, including words, ideas, and images.  Use hyperlinks to reference other content/resources online.
• Want to share a document or something you created?  Use free Google Docs/Drive or Dropbox (I'll post a tutorial on this later).
• Most importantly, remember that anything you post online, either personally or professionally, is a direct reflection of your professional image.  Welcome to the world of teaching!  Teachers are held to a higher standard than other professions, as we should be.  When considering whether to post something online, ask yourself if you would say it aloud to a room full of people - because that's essentially what you are doing.  When sharing your opinion, be aware of any biases you may have and whether you are able to adequately convey your intent in writing; some things are best left unsaid.  Also, remember to edit for grammar/style.  Some bloggers prefer to compose in a text editor, such as MS Word, and copy/paste their work into a blog post when they are finished.

In the news...

Here are a few news articles related to educational issues which may be of interest to you.  I encourage you to consider the following as you reflect upon the content:  1) facilitation or hindrance of excellent social studies teaching/learning, 2) your role as a teacher candidate and future educator/leader within the current educational climate, 3) potential creative, practical solutions to the issues and problems presented.

'Exemplary' Dallas school skips science, social studies for 3rd graders (Dallas News, 2011)

Senate begins debate on education law, focuses on testing (Washington Post)

Teacher tells Congress: ‘The federal incentives in education are wrong’ (Washington Post)