I've also been thinking about doing the same thing. I'm planning on creating a social networking site just for my students at ning.com. (I currently have one for former students who are interested in continuing the psychology conversation). I'm particularly interested in the social networking site for my Intro students. Being at a community college -- completely commuter campus -- many of our students are on campus just for class. And I've had classes where the students stayed late the last day of class because they didn't want the class to end. I suspect it had more to do with the relationships they built with each other than it did with me. So, I thought, why does it need to end?
Blogging. I have my students write reaction papers to course content, and some of them are brilliant in the questions they ask and the examples they give. Why should I be the only beneficiary? In ning.com, blogs can be posted immediately, or automatically posted at a future time and date. And since the ning.com site will be a private site, only students in the course (and whomever they show) will be able to view the blogs. I will also give students the option to submit 'blogs' as papers to me privately at any point during the term. I won't be trying this until January, so I don't have the details worked out, but I'm planning on requiring a 400+ word blog post every week. I'm not going to require students to comment on the blogs of other students, but I will feature especially good ones on the main course page within ning.com, and I'll make reference to different blogs in class. Hopefully those two things will provide enough intrinsic motivation. -- Sue Frantz Highline Community College Psychology Des Moines, WA 206.878.3710 x3404 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://flightline.highline.edu/sfrantz/ -- APA Division 2: Society for the Teaching of Psychology http://teachpsych.org/ Office of Teaching Resources in Psychology Associate Director Project Syllabus http://teachpsych.org/otrp/syllabi/syllabi.php -----Original Message----- From: Traci Giuliano [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2008 1:19 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: [tips] using blogs as an alternative to journals I'm thinking about converting my journal assignment to a blog assignment this semester in my social psychology course, and I was hoping that some of you with experience might offer some advice. Some issues I'm especially interested in are (a) what program/website to use, (b) whether to make the blogs public or private (if that's possible), and/or whether to give students a choice, (c) how to assign points to student entries (e.g., are students required to make comments on other students' blogs? how is quality graded?), and (d) is there a way to make the blogs accessible at the same time so that students don't see other students' entries until the deadline (e.g., so they aren't unintentionally primed to write something similar)?Also, if you wouldn't mind sharing links to your syllabus (where you discuss the blog assignment) and/or a link to the blogs themselves, that would be especially helpful. Finally, any additional hints that you'd like to share with a first-timer would be much appreciated!! Thanks! --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
