I believe that educational use of blogs is plausible only if the educational context is suitable for its use. For example, it is plausible for me if one uses blogs in a journalism class; however, I don’t see any reason for a math teacher to use blogs in teaching mathematics, it’sreally pointless for me. —Murat Ozoglu —INST 7150: Week 6: Blogs, Part the Second (dummies for instructional design)
This would appear to be a student’s online research project.
While I agree that classes that include a lot of writing and personal reflection are probably easier to envision in a blogging environment. I gather that there probably isn’t as much reflective, narrative thought going on in entry-level math courses as there is in some humanities courses. But perhaps, as math and science students progress through the courses that call for brute mental force and memorization, and get to the courses that call for original creative work, more procedural efforts that leave themselves open to reflection and narrative cognition, blogs might be more appropriate.
Stephanie Reigh, a Seton Hill student who is not in any of my classes is blogging her biology research project.
A regular reader of this blog, Josh Sasmor, is a math professor… what say you, Josh? I imagine that a plug-in that permitted the construction of equations and such would make blogging math a lot more sensible, though I imagine it wouldn’t be too hard just to use any old equation editor and publish .gif snapshots.
Post was last modified on 1 May 2014 10:35 am
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While some people may use blogs as a way for students to submit homework, I don't think most educators who are thinking seriously about what blogging can do for the classroom are limiting themselves to thinking strictly about submitting homework.
Blogs are actually much more useful for fostering personal reflection, integrating student work with online resources, and in some cases brainstorming.
I realize that, as an English professor, the raw material of my students' work is text, and that because blogs are a writing tool, the tool and the subject go together better.
Still, as Josh Sasmor noted in his comment, there are some kinds of math courses in which blogging might be more useful.
The existence of TeX shows that mathematicians knew early on that the text-processors designed for word-junkies like me weren't cutting it. Maybe there are already plugins that make MovableType or other blogging platforms more mathematician-friendly.
Below is the link to a very short reflection paper on Open Learning Support (OLS)website where I basically explain some of the issues related to using a plain text editor for writing, posting and reading math related questions, answers and comments on OLS website. I hold the same believes for blogs too. I don't see any reason for students to spend another couple hours writing codes in Latex or similar programs to put an already written (on paper) math assignment on thir blogs.
http://www.mozson.net/muht/text/OLS.pdf
Josh, I'd love to hear more about this when you get the chance.