The presenter, Konrad Glogowski, an eigth grade writing teacher, discussed his use of blogs as a "third place" for students to express themselves. The first place being students home, the second school, and the third, a sort of place where they are free to creatively express themselves. At the begining of the year, Mr. Glogowski challenged his students to "grow" a blog. He presented them a visual to assist them in planning their creation and, pretty much, allowed them the freedom to make their own product. He watched as the blogs and classroom community grew. Fellow students commented on one another's blog entries, offering advice and building fellow classmates confidence in their writing. Mr. Glogowski's role as teacher evolved into a reader of work and a partner in learning rather than an evaluator and expert of information. By the end of the year, his students had great pride in their work, bonded as a communtiy, and were better, more confident, writers. The likely hood that they would continue to work on their blogs and writing was extremely high. Mr. Glogowski's strategy and his educational philosophy towards blogging was a success.
Jeff Johnson on 14 Sep 08There's much anger circulating around the blogosphere about the comments of Michael Reiss, Director of Education at the Royal Society about how to deal with creationism and ID in school science classes. In fact, the whole thing could stand as an example of how on some issues (of which this is one) people only want to hear an unequivocal assertion of a party line and get unreasonably annoyed (and purport not to understand what they understand perfectly well) when someone says something nuanced or pragmatic.
