Ideas and Reflections

I started thinking about the beginning of the year. Here are my initial thoughts: the first few days, I will spend introducing the kids to the course, various ice breakers, going over the summer packet and testing on it (2nd day), setting up blogs, and finally starting material. Every year I want to spend more time on getting to know you games and activities and setting the tone. I hope to incorporate these more this year.

I'm planning on having the students set up blogs the first week and make a post. I also plan on using Moodle, but I'm just not quite sure yet. I like the idea of seeing everyone's post and responding easily - a little easier than using Google Reader for the kids.

I'm iffy about Moodle because I'm not sure that I'll keep up with it. I don't want to overdo it either with blog accounts and using Moodle. I guess I'll just go with it for now and see how it goes. I want to start making a journal of blog entries for throughout the year for each course. That is my plan for the next few weeks (2 weeks to go!)

Blogging in the classroom

I came across the first issue with blogging this week. All of my high school students have set up accounts and it has been really cool so far. The beginning took a while to set up their blogs and google reader and get them into it, but a few weeks in and it is growing on them more. I do still hear "Why do we have to do this?" and see faces of disgust! One of my freshman students told me there was another blog that came up when he logged in that was inappropriate. I wonder if I can limit this. Otherwise it is going well - but that will become a parent issue - not good!

My student blog assignments are posted at lmmath.blogspot.com