Tool #2 Building Community in the Online Environment!

1. I am not sure about how this post is supposed to be fulfilled, but I am contacting authors of blogs that I want to communicate with. One of my first attempts is with David Knuffke, a teacher in New York whose blog is entitled, Pseudopodia. (http://pseudopodia.org/post/10938733590/publishing-labs). I have commented on his post about how he is having his students complete lab reports. I very much want to go to an online format, but have numerous questions because of the AP requirements. Other blogs visited were those of http://www.biologycorner.com/blogs/ and http://missbakersbiologyclass.com/blog/.

2. I have set up a Google reader site and love it. It is attached to my iGoogle page that is attached to another Google account because SBISD has not given permission to use it via Google Docs. I receive feeds from so many different scientific sites such as http://www.eurekalert.org/, http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/ and http://www.biologynews.net/. I only go to this one location and all of the current news is there. Fantastic!

3.. I had many reservations with the first few blogs that I visited, but when I viewed ones that concerned my interest of biology and education, my reservations disappeared. I actually had substantive comments to make. In a limited fashion, I have used the blog format with my AP students and now that I have had a bit more experience with them, I think I will be able to expand. Today's students, who use the Internet for social purposes, need to be encouraged to communicate in this way for academic purposes.