Using Blogs in Science Education

The questionnaire I gave my students on the last day of fall classes included a place to write suggestions for the spring blog. Here are their responses (similar responses have been combined):

• assign topics

I think it stifles student creativity to tell the students what they must write about, but for students who feel insecure I’ll be more open to sharing and brainstorming ideas with them

• invite guest blog authors

I would love this, but I’m not sure how to go about finding appropriate guest bloggers. I think it might be hard. Anyone have any ideas?

I think it’s considered better blog etiquette to have students write to other people’s blogs rather than ask them to write on our blog. So I’m going to come up with a point incentive to get students to post to other science blogs.

• have a place where visitors can submit blog requests
• more post variety (too many endangered species posts)

I definitely agree with this request. Students are going to have to think outside the box next semester.

• allow old posts to be commented on

I didn’t allow this last semester because I didn’t want a student to wait until the last minute to work on the project and earn points for commenting to dead posts. But, I ran into a problem with one post that dealt with an ongoing issue and several students still wanted to talk about it weeks after it was posted. So I’m thinking of removing the restriction for certain blog posts.

• more consistency on when certain posts are published (i.e. Endless Forms Most Beautiful posts are always published on Sunday, Positive posts are always published on Wednesday)

I think this would be helpful to our readers. Here’s what I’ve come up with:

Sunday - Endless Forms Most Beautiful - highlights incredible evolutionary adaptations

Monday - The Real World - something the students can relate to in their everyday lives

Tuesday - Classroom Connection - directly relates to a class discussion, assignment, or lab

Wednesday - Positive Post - no bad news, just warm and fuzzy posts

Thursday - ?

Friday - ?

Saturday - ?

Do you have any ideas for these three days?

• better method to track points

If I had $1 for every time a student asked me last semester how many blog points they had I would be a very rich person. Next semester I’ll either regularly post points online or demand that the students take responsibility and keep track of their own points. The latter sounds best to me.

• more videos
• more debates
  
• better judging system for comments
  

Hmmm, how to determine if a comment should be posted and a student should receive credit for it is the million dollar question.

• make no changes please, I like how it is

Well, obviously I have plans to improve the blog so I can’t fulfill this last request, but I do think those that don’t want any changes to be made will end up liking the changes.

Yesterday I received an email from a teacher in St. Louis with several questions for me.

1. How do students log into the blog? Do they each have their own account or just one student account?

The great thing about blogs is unlike bulletin boards and wikis they can be used safely with students without requiring usernames and passwords. Students don’t have to log in to use it. However, I do have comment moderation turned on. That way when a student writes a comment to a post it doesn’t automatically appear on the blog until I’ve read and approved it. You can see my blog training website to find my safety information and a student safety contract. I held a blog training session for teachers at my school and built that website for the training. I just want to interject here that I am by no means an expert in blogging, but I do feel I can passionately speak out for the positive benefits of using blogs in the science classroom, hence the purpose of this blog.

2. Do you require students to blog for a grade?

Yes! They must earn 100 blog points per semester. The project is worth about 20% of their grade. Some might think that is initially a bit much, but if you start a blog with you’re students you’ll discover how much work it is for the students and why it is so beneficial. The blog developed out of my personal philosophy of science education - students should understand that science is a collaborative process, not a mere collection of facts. Students develop science literacy skills by using the blog to discuss science news, thus I find it greatly valuable to their education.

3. If yes, how often are students required to blog?

It’s a semester long project. I made it pretty flexible for the students. I gave 10 points per post and 2 points per comment. So they could either reach 100 points by writing 50 comments, 10 blog posts, or a mix of the two. Most students completed a mixture of the two. I had guidelines that the students had to follow in order to receive points for posts and comments.

I have 60 students so my point system required me to grade quite a few comments (over 2,500!), so next semester I’m going to give more points per post and comment. However, I’ll also have tougher restrictions on what makes an acceptable post or comment.

4. Do most students blog at school or at home?

At home. I gave them quite a few homework nights to just work on the blog. On those nights I didn’t keep track of who actually worked on it or not for any grading purposes. That way students could respond to blog posts when they enjoyed the post rather than just doing it for a grade.

5. How do students decide what to blog on?

This semester I left it pretty open. Anything dealing with biology was okay. Next semester, however, I plan on tightening the restrictions a bit now that they are comfortable with using the blog. I’ll be posting a list of some of changes for next semester over the Christmas break. The list will include what worked this semester and what didn’t work and why. I’ll also be posting my student blog training suggestions. It takes a bit of work to get students to learn how to effectively write posts and comment on posts, but it’s well worth the effort.

Was this information helpful? Please let me know if you have any additional questions. I’d love to hear more about you and students. If you decide to start a blog for your students, please send me the web address and sporadically drop by and let me know how it’s going!

After my students and I were nominated for an Edublog Award I received quite a few emails from educators asking me how I use the blog in my classes. I’ve even been asked to guest speak at a University education class! In order to open up the conversations I’ve been having with educators to everyone rather than keeping them confined to emails, I’ve created this blog.

So, why use blogs in biology education? My students answer that question best. The following are a few excerpts from a survey my 9th grade (14-15 year old) students completed yesterday after a full semester of blogging. They wrote these responses anonymously.

I learned a lot about biology and how it relates to our everyday life.

I learned more about biology and learned how to better use websites to communicate.

I improved my researching skills.

I now have a better understanding of the world around me and I got to see many issues around the world.

I improved my writing and analytical skills by responding to different posts and by answering different questions that the person who wrote the posts asked. I also learned new facts about different animals and many important current events.

I learned how beneficial student discussion is.

The blog project really helped me see the new advances made in science. It also helped me see my classmates opinions.

I learned about current events.

I benefited from this project because it helped me learn about topics that I probably would not have ever heard about if it were not for the blog.