Mrs. Zana’s Class

a place to read and write together

Archive for April 16th, 2006


Blogging about the Blog: an ongoing journal (part 4)

The blog has become a part of our class by now, no longer a novelty.

We completed the poetry analysis project all on the blog (students analyzed song lyrics from songs they suggested and I selected). I was able to critique their responses in real time or from home, but sometimes it got to be overwhelming; too many comments and not enough time. I liked that all the groups could see the work of other groups on the same song or other songs.

I’m noticing that if something is on the blog I have less of a tendency to quickly grade it. Unlike a pile of papers, I can’t see it growing and getting out of hand; it’s nicely hidden away in cyber land.

Mr. Kashman has started a blog. Like our teaching, it is a separate “room”, but the same cast of characters. It is his blog, so it has a different feel to it. Two real communities, collaborating.

I’m getting frustrated with the chronological order of postings on the blog. Things disappear as they get old. Like last month’s lessons, the posts float off into the archives. I didn’t realize when I started this how things get buried. And by this point, there’s so much content that no one is going to look at the old stuff.