Educational Blogs

http://service-learning.blogspot.com/
This was the first thing to come up when I googled "service learning blogs." I am hoping to have my students create blogs related to their own service this semester, so this is definitely something that is on my mind right now. This blog is "the online voice of the service-learning community," so it would be a great resource to refer students to learn about upcoming national service days and contests. It also has links to national publications covering service learning.

Through exploring these links, I came upon this, which is a class website for an English class at East Carolina University that participates in service learning. It is made on wetpaint, which seems like Ning, maybe? Does anybody know more about it? Anyway, I think the site is a bit confusing, but there are some interesting ideas about how to have students reflect on their service here. It's also pretty interesting to me that this course webpage is monetized and contains advertisements for "The Bachelor" and "Gossip Girl," but that's a whole other can of worms...

http://teacherlytech.net
This is a blog maintained by a composition instructor at Jones County Community College. I think that this instructor is doing a lot of the things with technology in the classroom that I am trying to work up to doing in my classes. For instance, here is a post showcasing some examples of student produced videos, which I would really like to try. I really appreciate the concrete examples of student work showcased on the blog. My favorite link from this one is to a site where students (or anyone I suppose) can create a "visual cv."

http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/

This is a blog that doesn't really look like a blog anymore, but that I use in class all the time. Mignon Fogarty, "Grammar Girl" is probably best known for her podcast, which is accessible through the blog as well. I would say that it is more of a website, and I'm cheating a little, but it still is authored by one person, provides an RSS feed, and can be commented on (and she refers to it as her blog). I use these in class because when I play them it appeals to more than one learning style by giving students the podcast to listen to, while they read along with the blog (which sometimes has pictures) on the projector screen. I don't use these every time I teach grammar, but those lessons can be really dry and this helps shake them up. She also links to You Tube videos that illustrate the concepts.

http://cce.typepad.com/cce/

This blog is particularly for teachers of English at Community Colleges. It allows anyone to become a contributor, with permission. It links to a lot of personal blogs from other community college teachers, writing about teaching, and also to the blogs of professional organizations like TYCA. This blog has a lot of really useful, practical resources for lesson plans and simple technologies to use in the classroom. It also provides a lot of links to texts available through creative commons, which is very useful for those of us who like to link to texts from our Blackboard pages. Mostly, I like the conversational feel of the blog. I like to share teaching ideas with my colleagues, and this feels just like that.

Here is my favorite link on the blog: http://www.60secondrecap.com/
They are fun. Here's one: