Saturday, January 5th, 2008...8:12 pm
Other Things I’d Advise
Comment-free Day. Last semester I moderated over 2,300 comments. Yes, I’m exhausted. While I enjoyed reading my students’ comments, there were many days when I needed to grade their non-blog related assignments, but I was busy with the blog. This semester, Wednesdays will be no commenting day. Students may not comment to the blog on this day in order to give me time to take care of other grading.
Think carefully about your point set-up. While my students love the blog, they wouldn’t have participated if it weren’t for a grade. I gave them 2 points per comment and 10 points per blog post. I have 66 students and with this point set-up I had to grade a lot of comments and posts. Next semester I will change to this point-set up: 5 points per comment, 8 points per comment made to another biology blog, and 20 points per blog post. I will expect even better content from my students in return for the increase in points. This point set-up will be more manageable for me grading-wise. In other words, the number of students you have should be considered when deciding on your point breakdown.
Design an easy way for students to check their grade during the semester. Next semester students (and their parents) will sign a consent form allowing me to post their grade online. For those students who are not comfortable having their grade posted for all the world to see, I will give them a worksheet that they will use to keep track of their own posts.
Save procrastinators from themselves. Last semester, students could earn 100 points at any point during the semester. The only restriction I had in place in order to keep students from procrastinating was to only accept one blog post per week and 10 comments per day. This semester, students must earn 25 points by designated dates during the semester. There will be four designated block dates. Students may not make up any missed points after a set date has passed. For example, if a student only earned 18 points during the first block, the maximum score that student can make on the project is a 93, regardless of how many comments or posts made the rest of the semester. Students can still only submit one blog post per week, but they may only submit 2 comments per day.
4 Comments
June 28th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Stacy-
Thank you so much for this informative blog. I am following your guidelines to set up my first blog. I have a couple questions if you wouldn’t mind answering.
1. Since students comment without the need for a username, do they have to enter in an e-mail address each time they comment?
2. You mention the decision about accepting or not accepting a comment for credit. Is your policy that if a comment gets approved they can assume they got the points?
3. What is you limit on posting to “dead posts”?
June 29th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Hi Mrs. Hoffman,
1. Yes, they do. But, it makes it rather convenient for me if I ever need to contact them regarding a comment.
2. When a student submits a comment and it hasn’t been approved there is a notice below the comment that reads, “comment is awaiting moderation.” When the student no longer sees that notice, they know their comment has been approved. If their comment disappears, they know I deleted the comment because it was not accepted.
3. Students may comment to any post that is still on the main page. If a student goes into the archives or clicks “next page” at the bottom of the main page, they are considered responding to dead posts. No credit is given for responding to a dead post. Exceptions may be made for “hot” topics. An announcement is made in class regarding those exceptions.
Good luck with your blog! Let me know if you have any more questions.
Stacy
June 30th, 2008 at 1:58 am
Regarding the fact that you have students e-mail you their posts and then you post them….
Do they send the post to you in a Word document or just the body of an e-mail? Do you have special instructions you give them regarding the pictures in their posts? I tried practicing this as I thought the students might do it and found a picture I wanted to insert from Flickr. I right-clicked and clicked copy image, then inserted it into my e-mail message practice post. The picture showed up fine in the e-mail. I sent the e-mail to myself and then I copied the entire e-mail message “practice post” into a post and the picture did not show. Do you have any tips for this? Thanks again for sharing your expertise?
Do you happen to have any of the blog training materials you use with your students available?
July 2nd, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Either method is fine. It’s best to just ask your students to send the photo source link by hyperlinking the words “photo source”. They don’t have to send the actual photo. You can then click on the link and download the photo to insert into the post.
Teaching your students how to hyperlink is the first thing you should do. By teaching them how to hyperlink you won’t have to edit their posts. I tell my students I should be able to just copy and paste. If I have to edit it (even just a tiny bit) I send it back to them with just the words - Not Accepted.
Always remember that your students should be doing the work, not you.
All my blog training materials are on this site or are linked to on this site. I’m changing schools this year so I may make some changes and have more materials up in late August when I start focusing on next year. I’m also giving a presentation at a NSTA conference in November so I’ll be freshening things up a bit before then.
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