Using Scribe Posts on Class Blogs

Common question asked is “It’s easy to understand how English or social studies teachers use blogs with students. But how would you use blogs for maths, science, art ….?”

Finding Blogging Ideas

Checking the class blog list, categorized by year and subject area, is a good starting point. These two posts also help:

But it’s also good to check out teachers with years of experience using blogs with students. Take for example how Darren Kuropatwa uses scribe posts on his class blogs. Darren’s been using this approach with his maths students since 2005 and it can be adapted for any subject area.

What are Scribe Posts?

How it works is a different student is responsible for posting a summary of what happened in class each day and at the end of their post the scribe nominates the scribe for the next day. Here is an example of a scribe post from his Pre-Cal 40S (Winter 2009) class blog.

Darren says scribe posts:

Forces students to reflect on their learning and explain the material so others can understand
Allows him to see what aspects of the course content students are struggling with
Means students who are absent from class can easily access complete, student generated, online course material
Makes students take greater ownership of their learning
Encourages him to be a better teacher

Read more about how Darren uses scribe posts here:

The Scribe Post – 2005
Distributed Teaching and Learning – 2006
My Class Blogs: Part 2 – 2009

FINAL THOUGHTS

Scribe posts are just one idea on how you can use blogs with students. What are your ideas for using blogs for maths, science, arts or music? What are some cool approaches you’ve used or you have seen others using with student blogging?

This post was inspired from watching Alec Couros’s keynote presentation “Harnessing the Power of Social Networks in Teaching and Learning” — well worth watching!

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