Class Blog Makes the Grade

Now I just know there are all sorts of stories out there like this one just waiting to be told…Right???

Since English teacher Stacey O’Donnell embraced blogging as a teaching tool, the days of ducked assignments and terse essays are long gone. She can’t get her students to stop writing.

“If there were only questions and a notebook, they’d say, ‘I did it. It’s done. That’s it,’ ” said O’Donnell, 32. “But this keeps raising the bar.”

English teachers at North Salem High School were the first to experiment with blogs, the wildly popular and increasingly influential Web logs that are the latest Internet contribution to personal and public communication. They made entries part of graded class work and homework.

It worked so well, they talked it up to their colleagues.

From English, the program spread to the science department. Now the middle school is exploring the blogging possibilities.

“The goal is to expand education beyond the classroom,” said English Department Chairman Nick Kowgios. “It’s very powerful, especially for kids who don’t speak much in class. This gives them a voice.”

Keep reading…

Go, blogs, go.