A Tale of Two Blogs

The first of the must read blogs that I perused is called Extreme Biology. This is a class blog where the students contribute as frequently (if not more so) than the teacher. The student's postings usually include a photo and an explanation of an interesting study or current event related to all things science. Many of the posts ended with an invitation for other students to take their poll or answer a question to continue the dialogue. This struck me as a great venue for all of those interesting (but somewhat off-topic) questions that we often don't have time for in science class.

In my classroom I do something on Fridays called Science in the News. This is a time when I share current events related to science. We take some time to discuss these topics and how they relate to what we're doing in class. I would love to turn this over to students who could post the current events and then give class time for students to read and comment. This seems like a simple and straightforward way to use blogging in a science classroom.

The second must read blog I checked out is called 2 Cents Worth. The first thing that caught my eye is that it's a wordpress blog. I'm very interested in learning about these for personal use. This is the blog of a non-traditional educator blogging about technology and education. I was initially interested in the blog because the posts were relatively short compared to some of the other ones I looked at. In all the blogs I read I find I tend to prefer shorter blog entries that get right to the point. I can do without a lot of musing and whining. I was especially interested in the article that was about school filters and how they're hamstringing educators. I bookmarked the article and plan to read it. At the end of the day I would rather read Richard Byrne's technology education blog. I find it's a bit more short and sweet.