Thursday, August 12, 2010

Writing a Good Blog Post

You will be writing multiple blog posts to chronicle your learning in this research project.  Your posts should be clearly and appropriately written, include proper citations for ideas (and images), and describe what you are learning about your topic.  Since your blog will have multiple authors, it is important that you give us a reminder of your topic in each post.  Additionally, good blog posts provide a "hook" to solicit reader feedback.

About Citations:  Blogs are a bit different than formal "print" writing.  If you are citing a resources from the web, you should include a link to it (like I did below).  If you include an extensive quote from the web, you should block quote it (see below).  If you can't link to the resource, use APA citation formatting and include a reference section (see the end of this post).

Example block quotes - Introduce the source with a link.

Use the " button in the editor to block quote a section of your blog post.

You have a lot of freedom in how your construct your posts.  However, one model that you can use is to write a post that describes what you have Learned, how it Applies to the classroom, and what you still Wonder about.  This format (LAW) can also be a useful writing prompt when you are trying to assess your future students!

Go here to learn more about copyright issues in education and finding images.

Go here to learn how to embed video and other resources into a blog post.

Read this for more information on writing a good blog post.

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Use a divider like this to set off the reference section.  Refer to any source that you did not directly link to in APA format.  Put all of the image sources here like this-

Image Source: Include source and a link.

More than Just Text

There are many ways to communicate your ideas beyond simply using text.  Go here to see a variety of web tools and projects that you or your future students can use.  Many of these can be embedded into your blog!