Thing #3 A place to tell of thoughts you think

Welcome to the third addition of my nooblog,

Last time I talked a lot about myself.  This time I will try to keep the post focused on the topic at hand: technology in the classroom, more specifically blogs.  First, an observation that will lead to my first point.  The more I write here the more I begin to feel at ease putting my thoughts in a public place.  I am usually a very private person, not one to try and get attention focused on myself.  I will happily work behind the scenes if only the task is accomplished in the best way possible.   Writing a blog could be a way for a student who has an attitude similar to mine to get their thoughts out there for the class to see in a way that feels safe for them.  These class blogs would certainly need to be moderated; trolls have no boundaries and there is one lurking in all of us.  The same psychology that allows people to become merciless and opinionated on the internet could allow a shy person to open up and share their thoughts.  The internet creates a "barrier" between yourself and the people with whom you communicate.  You might say something in a chat room or on your blog you might never say in person while seemingly "protected" by a pseudonym and whacky profile picture; one can become a completely different person through the magic of the internet.

That's me in the in the popular MMORPG World of Warcraft.  Those of you who know me in the real world know that I am not nearly that intimidating.  World of Warcraft was really my first experience with Web 2.0.  I have spent literally months of real world time doing things in things in the world of Azeroth, the game's primary setting.  I made friends I have never seen in person, but I collaborated with them on many an epic quest and daring dungeon crawl.  The point here is that on the internet you can become whoever you choose to be; just pick a race and a class and start killing boars in the forest, so to speak. 

Back to task, a blog could be used in conjuntion with a reearch project.  Each student could be assigned a topic within each unit and tasked with finding out more about it and writing a blog post with their findings.  This could save classtime for more instruction by moving a time consuming presentation day to homework and lessening the stress on those shy students I mentioned earlier. 

In future education courses I may begin a blog for the course whether I am required to or not and share the URL with the class so I can share any useful tips or resources I may find.  Though with that I would do well to review the school's policy on academic dishonesty.  Even though I would do this with the best of intentions one cannot rule out the skullduggery of a few dishonest souls.  Depending on how it played out the backlash on me could be severe.

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