Thinking Out Loud… As A Class

On Monday I start a new class. In previous years I have been surprised by just how reluctant students have been to share their work online. The last thing you want to hear from students when you’re teaching a web development course: “Our work isn’t going to be on the Internet is it?!” (But, frankly, I have.)

WordPress.com Blog

This year I am teaching subjects on client-side scripting and content management systems. We will be delving into JavaScript and WordPress (and some other CMS options). As an introduction to WordPress — and as a way of encouraging the students to get into the habit of documenting and sharing their learning and research — I am getting the students to start their own WordPress.com blog. We will follow each other’s blogs within WordPress.com Reader. We will post things we find about these subjects (videos, links, quotes, etc.). We will reflect on our collective learning — what worked, what didn’t work, what surprised us and more.

Call To Action

Create Your WordPress.com Blog and Follow Your Classmates (and Teacher)

1. Create a WordPress.com blog
2. Leave a comment on this blog entry with the URL to your newly created blog
3. Visit each others’ WordPress.com blogs while logged in and click on the “Follow” button

When you arrive at class in future weeks be sure to log in to Edmodo and your WordPress.com blog at the beginning of the lesson. You will be able to see what other people are posting, and you will have your blog open to post things to during class.

Your First Entry

1. Create a new entry, call it ‘Hello World.’ Introduce yourself. Write a little bit about why you’re doing this course.

Welcome and good luck!