Notes of a New Professor

My students are using their new blogs to carry on the discussions we might have done in D2L’s discussion boards. At the end of the class, they’ll choose a collection of their blog posts that represent their efforts in this class. This collection is one of the biggest assignments of the class and the assignment was inspired by one Dennis Jerz assigned his students at Seton Hill.

I loved his idea of including wild cards. In the blog collection, I am requiring my students to ‘[i]nclude two blog entries on any topic that is professionally relevant. The entries should demonstrate your achievements as a blogger, a teacher, or a leader. If you decided to take a risk trying to embed an unfamiliar technology in an entry, a wildcard entry is a great place to show that – whether it worked or not!”

I was going to make this blog post about something else, but it occurred to me that I should share this instead. At a minimum, it shows them one of many possibilities for a wild card entry for their own blogs.

Here’s how the events leading to this post unfolded.

I read an email from a student asking about making comments on her classmates’ blogs. After all, this blogging thing is new to them.
Made a Jing screencast to show her how to do what she had asked me about.
Noticed that she was on Skype, and sent her the link to the screencast.
A few minutes later, she Skyped me again saying she just submitted her first comment to a classmates. I’m confident she was successful.

Here’s the screencast – embedded in the blog.