Ok guys...

Going to use a classic student comment here, "But, I don't GET it."

Before you start responding, let me tell you what I do get:

-blogging (internet access aside) is a good deal more accessable to a wider audience than a sheet of paper is, so collaboration/feedback is streamlined

-despite all your admonishments that students need to protect themselves online, I assume that there is the 'anonymous factor' to the work that allows otherwise reticent students to share and communicate in ways they would not have before

My question is to the concreteness of this endeavor. Specifically, what assignments are being completed online and how?

Thus far in all the edublogs I have read I haven't gotten the merest hint of the content and goals that blogs contain.

I taught HS Anatomy and Physiology several years ago. Except for some obvious read only type uses I can't see how I would have incorporated a blog or wiki into the classroom.

Douglas

First let me preface my reply by putting our experiences in context. Both Bud and I are fairly new bloggers. We've been at it only a few months. As we continue to adapt the technology to our teaching styles and curricula (it's important to me that that is not the other way around) we will continue to learn and see what more will come of it.

Nonetheless, there are examples of the "concrete" assignments/work you mentioned. Check out Mr. Fort's blog, Shapes, Patterns, and Proofs - Oh My!, in Georgia. On my classroom blog, Pre-Cal 40S, I post blogging prompts that encourage students to extend what they are learning in the classroom. Take a look at this, this, this, and this.

Given where I am on my "blogging learning curve", I'd say you do get it. ;-) It largely serves as a type of formative assessment, or rather, assessment for as opposed to assessment of learning. I think you were asking about that second type of assessment.

At this point of the game, blogging serves to open the door to communication between students and between the teacher and students. As I learn from them where they are experiencing difficulty I am able to adapt my teaching to the needs of the class in a way I never was before -- now I have a better idea of where each (participating) student stands in their learning.

In our original recording, some of which was lost as we were learning Audacity, I made the comment (I had read somewhere, I forget where) that MacKenzie King said "Conscription if necessary, but not necessarily conscription." Adapted to our context this would be: "Technology if necessary, but not necessarily technology." A reasonable motto I think.

Thx Mr. K.

The examples went a long way to demonstrating what it is that some teachers are doing with blogs.

In fact, I was mildy inspired to concoct something of my own along these lines, but didn't...err, haven't.

I keep thinking I could teach SQL to students in some form or another, but haven't arrived at anything more concrete than 'an idea'. As far as I know most schools don't have a curriculum for teaching students about databases and that surprises me. Its such a great 'language' to have experience with and forms that core of much of what it means to have technology skills in this day.

If I come up with something, I will let you know.

That sounds like good content for a computer science course. Do they offer that at your school? If so, you sound like the right man for the job. ;-)