Week 2, Learning Activity 1 - Blogging with Blogger

Blogging with Blogger

Prompt: You will create your own blog using Blogger from Google. Once your blog is created, you will post a brief summary of what you learned through the blog creation process, as well as successes and challenges you faced. Once created, email a link to your blog to your instructor.

The creation of this blog was relatively simple for me. I already use Google frequently, so I did not have to create or sign up for any new accounts. I have also used Blogger, both as a student in my Masters in Teaching program, and in my own classroom in previous years. Yet, I have not used Blogger for the past few years due to some management issues I had. 

The blog creation process is rather smooth. You need a Google account (which all of my students already have) and once you do, all you must do is select the icon for "New Blog," give it a title, find an available link name, and choose one of the predesigned layouts. Then, to create a post, you can simply choose the edit icon and it immediately sends you to write a draft of your post. In your post, you can easily add links, images, and files. 

I feel rather successful in the creation of this blog. Even without much experience creating a blog, the process is streamlined enough that I think all of my students could easily create their own blog. I am considering using it again in my own classroom, as I will begin teaching an Internet Safety course as an elective this upcoming quarter. However, in the past, when I had all my students have their own individual blog where they posted daily assignments, one of the challenges that I experienced was cheating. Students frequently copied the work from the blogs of their peers. Even more challenging to me was the management of the blogs. It was challenging to go through each blog and find the assignments, especially if a student was absent or did assignments out of order. Before I elect to incorporate blogs into my classroom again (and I am back in school on Monday, August 26!), I will have to consider these management issues to ensure that things progress smoothly.