Why do this? Well, students in my Integrating Technology and Literacy course have been corresponding through blogging with this group of students. The students in my course, who are mostly teachers, have had the opportunity to see how blogging works by reading posts from these students in Iowa and responding.
So I started a blog for the Iowa students. I don't know them personally. I only know them from reading their blogs. Each time one of the Iowa students writes a comment on my blog, I access the student's blog and write a reply to a post. This process of writing replies is time consuming, given the number of students involved, but I feel that if a student takes the time to reply to one of my posts, the favor is reciprocal.
Here is my blog:
Here is their blog:
Did I mention the teacher? It is Scott Boylen. I met him on Twitter a couple years ago, and since then, when I teach Integrating Technology and Literacy, my students partner with his in a cross-class blogging project.
Well, if you hop over Blogging with Iowa Students, you will see what I have been up to. You can also find the students' blogs here: Mr. Boylen's 2013-14 LA Class.
Assuming you looked at Blogging with Iowa Students and Mr. Boylen's 2013-14 LA Class, what are your thoughts about the use of blogs to connect students with those outside of their class? What about teachers, such as the ones in my class, reading blog posts of students they don't know and responding?
Really would like to hear from others about what you see as the value of blogging including cross-class blogging.
Will Richardson posted this on Twitter, and thought I would share it. Do you agree with him?
