Dan Mitchell is compiling his ruminations about the use of Web logs in education. Dan was one of the first edubloggers I found and his work at De Anza College has done a lot to inform my own thinking about teacher and student sites and templates and such. For example, in his process of having teachers create and maintain Manila sites he says:
While several of us are aware of the deep underlying power of the Manila weblog environment, we decided at the outset to focus on providing basic skills for our faculty users. In fact, we set a very low basic threshold for success: faculty members should be able to create and maintain at least a single web page that contained important contact information along with some personal information. Virtually everyone met this standard, and most created more sophisticated sites with multiple pages and posted course information, etc.
I’m wondering if that might be the very least we could ask of our teachers as well, the creation and upkeep of a single page of contact information with some additional background info. Teachers who are so inclined could add a resume, or discuss best practices, their philosophy or more. Just a thought…
Thanks for the link to my little summary of some ideas about weblogs in education. I’ve done quite a few training and support projects and have come to believe that small, widely-successful projects are better than fancy, complex projects that cannot be sustained. I think our De Anza project supports this notion.
Dan