Authentic writing in a science classroom

One of my science teachers approached me before winter break about wanting to start a blogging project with her students. Any time a teacher is excited about using technology and approaches me about a project, I jump all over it.

She would like to revamp the notion of the traditional research project with her students. They will be researching particular science concepts that interest them, and write about the information they find. It will also incorporate feedback from professors, peers, teachers, parents, etc. in the form of comments to their blogs; they will also get to experience the different types of scientific writing that happens in the science community.

One of the reasons I'm a big proponent of blogging as a classroom instruction tool is that it "raises the stakes" for students. By widening the audience that will see their work, students will tend to become more invested in it. If a paper's only going to be read by the student and the teacher, and nothing is ever done with it, how much effort is the student likely to invest?

Very cool ideas brimming in this teacher's head... When she presented it to some of her students, they were excited about wanting to do this with it and that with it and so on.

We had an interesting discussion about the nature of blogs as technology - with the popular consciousness moving towards Twittering and Facebooking, is blogging actually outdated?

Posted in: blogging, communication, project-based learning, students, writing