Monday, March 10, 2014

Student Blogs

I googled “high school student blogs”. My course assignment was to find an interesting student blog, write about it in my blog, then post to the student’s blog, letting them know about my post.  What I didn't expect to find was a really active blog written by students just across the Casco Bay Bridge in Portland, Maine! The students of McAuley High School have a very active blog, McMoments, which apparently has its roots in the old school newspaper.

I found this interesting because I tried to publish an online newspaper a few years ago at my high school, with limited success. The principal at the time was very concerned about content, and so insisted on approving each article before publication. Also, for the same reasons, the paper was not opened up for commenting, so did not take advantage of  Web 2.0 technologies. And because it wasn’t interactive, the students didn’t have much interest in it! It died a quiet death, despite having a couple of very talented and dedicated editors.

What impressed me about the blog is both the quality of the writing and the breadth of content.  I was also impressed by the frequency of posting by students, leading me to wonder if this is part of a class, rather than an after school journalism club. In particular, I liked that several authors, students at this private, all girls school, focused on issues important to women or self-esteem. An example of this would be the post, “Five Things You Should Stop Worrying About”.

The McMoments blog makes me want to try again with an online newsletter. Perhaps this time I will integrate it into an English class, encouraging my students to write high quality pieces for all the world to see.

4 comments:

  1. Best wishes with the online newspaper revitalization. Perhaps, new administration and a few years of web 2.0 change the dynamics.
    Keep us posted if your newspaper should take off!
    ~Robin

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    1. Thanks Robin, I have high hopes that this time will be different!

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  2. I agree with Robin, keep us posted--it would be interesting to see it take off!

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    1. It may take a couple of weeks, but I think we will be online before this course ends!

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