The blogs that the students were using in this article got me thinking further about using blogs in a high school physics class. Even before I read this, I had ever so often thought of ways to use the Internet in class. My original inclination was to provide links to other physics lectures, websites we viewed in class with interactive applets, downloadable copies of documents distributed in class and much more. Much the same way that colleges use the Internet to efficiently distribute class materials, assignments and updates.
The first part of this article showed me ways of using the Internet for more than just administrative postings or easy access to links. Using a blog would work, but I have recently become familiar with Google Docs, which allows multiple users (anyone who is invited to the document) to collaboratively work together on one document, each editing and saving a version online. Each user’s contribution is tagged and students would be able to peer edit from home, or in class without the chore of distributing new copies of the editions to every member.
I intend on using a collaborative writing strategy for lab reports in my classroom and Google Docs would be a perfect piece of technology for that application. Each student could post their first edition of their lab report, invite several classmates to review it through the website, and watch as several students make revisions to their work. As a teacher, I would also be invited so that I could grade the effort that each student makes towards revising another’s report.
Another possible use of a Blog in a physics classroom would be to have students create an online version of their laboratory logbook. This could be a yearlong activity. The blog would be organized into separate labs, with data, results, materials, procedures and conclusions. Students could provide links to other research on the same topic from other sources on the web. This would be a great use of the Internet. As a teacher, grading would be as simple as going on to their blog and reading the entries. We would save paper, time printing and handing in, there would be no log books to bring to class, and during the lab the data could be directly entered into the blog.
