Well, here it is - my first blog, ever. Please be kind.
The first blog that I’ve found for review is The James Logan Courier, produced by the students of James Logan High School's Journalism and News Production classes - http://jameslogancourier.org/.
It’s not so much a resource for students to access information from daily, or even an educator’s resource on how to use technology in a classroom setting, but I’ve found it to be a great example of one teacher’s use of blogging as a way of getting his journalism students publishing their work on a regular basis. Replacing the old school newspaper, this medium gives the students an incredible opportunity to display their writing skills in a setting very much like the one they may be aspiring to in a future career.
The format seems pretty simple and straight-forward. There are written contributions of news stories each day by the students meant to inform the masses, as well as student-created art and cartoons to entertain. The stories are well written and obviously the teacher takes the time to edit his student’s work to present a truly professional final result.
There is lighter fare as well with the reviews of movies, DVDs, CDs, concerts, and restaurants. There are political cartoons posted regularly which would be an excellent way for teachers of other classes to spark conversations of current national and global events. Also, the regular feature “Tech Tuesday” deals with reviews of video games, new pieces of technology, or even the use of technology in the news, as evidenced by one story of a teacher suspended for her remarks about her students in her own blog entries.
Included with the regular daily contributions, there is a profile of someone of some historical or popular significance, based on the calendar day and on the birthday of the historical figure. These are mostly referenced from Wikipedia and are used to send a message of education, justice or tolerance.
Using the blog format to give the journalism students a regular voice is a great example of one teacher using technology to educate and instil confidence in his students. Beyond that, he has created an area for other students to frequent that will foster and promote literacy with their peers, even if it just to see how the basketball team performed in the weekend tournament. There is such a wide range of material covered in this blog space, much like the various sections of a newspaper, that there is something to attract almost anyone and hopefully get them hooked on reading more of the entries on a regular basis. Heck, I even learned from one of the entries that there actually was a man named Rube Goldberg for whom all the Mousetrap-esque contraptions are named for.
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