SOCIAL MEDIA – INSTRUCTOR BLOG PAPER
BARBARA J. ANDERSON
FEBRUARY 8, 2015
I have never used a blog before for any of my classes. With some thought I have come up with four different ways that I could use a blog in my Survey of Biology 1100 (nonmajors) online class. I could use any of my news feeds (Like Yahoo News) on my homepage for breaking news and/or current events in biology. Stories like the measles outbreak, climate change, coyote sightings, or the planting of milkweed along Illinois tollways to help stop the decline of monarch butterflies could be used. Second I could establish a blog about our campus prairie restorations to include history, when plant species come into bloom, activities like seed collecting, seed processing, planting, burning, maintenance, and tours. I have my students watch bald eagle behavior from about November-July using bald eagle video cams online which are 24-7. A blog could help focus student observations for nest restoration by the parents, courting by the parents, egg laying, hatching, juvenile behavior, etc. The fourth idea I had was to establish a blog to give study tips to students on at least a weekly basis. This would be similar to the Teaching Professor-Faculty Focus.
Benefits of using a blog might include: increasing faculty-student and student-student interaction, involve the community, make students aware of the everyday importance of biology, and to help students study more efficiently.
Disadvantages of using a blog might include: additional work for the instructor to maintain the blog and keep it current and it would give the student another site or item to keep track of on a regular basis.
The news feeds and the Decorah eagles site are already on my media homepage. I will also add the three below (2 for prairies, 1 for study tips):
http://blog.parkland.edu/?tag=prairie-restoration
http://pleasantvalleyconservancy.org/rarespecies.html
http://www.facultyfocus.com/topics/articles/teaching-professor-blog
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