Using a blog to prompt student discussion

For his wellness classes, Troy created a blog with links to articles about recent events that he wants his students to discuss.  Students post comments anonymously.  Take a look:

http://troysnewsofnote.blogspot.com/

I was in the room as students were reading and reacting to some of these articles and the engagement was high. 

Having students create and update their own blogs is also a powerful way to make writing meaningful for them.  Teachers whose students blog report improvement in both their writing and their engagement.

There are many tools available for blogging.  Probably the easiest to get started with is Blogger (or Blogspot), which is part of Google Apps for Education (this is what Troy used).  You can find Blogger by clicking "More" while in gMail. 

Here are a few articles if you'd like to read some more:

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/blogging-in-21st-century-classroom-michelle-lampinen

http://georgecouros.ca/blog/archives/3721