Response to Chapter’s 2 & 3

I thought it was interesting and educational to be posting a weblog on a reading about a web blog.  As Richardson mentions having a class portal certainly have helped me eliminate questions from students like “I didn't know we had homework”.  Having things available digitally is a big help in my classroom especially when students are absent they are able to check my Blackboard website and see what they missed.

As a webmaster for a school website who works hard to keep the school website up-to-date I am interested in seeing how I can implement weblogs within my schools site.  In our county we have a lot of control over what can go on our schools website and every time I update date it I must go through an approval process.  I can see this being difficult for some departments who wouldn't want to spend the time on it but very beneficial for things like posting the morning announcements each day.

As Richardson states, teachers need to establish a safety policy and discuss it with students prior to using blogs.  While using blogs in my class last spring I encountered an issue where a student posted an appropriate comment on another student’s blog within Blackboard.  The good thing about using a portal such as blackboard though is that it tracks the students name and time and I was able to remove and contact the parent of the student with the issue in a timely manner.  But, as an educator giving students the freedom of collaboration online you must be prepared to take care of behavior issues immediately so they don’t continue.  Richardson gives some great other blog software educators can use that are open source.  I would like to test some of these other sources including Weblogg-Ed or Blogger and compare the usability to the Blackboard portal.