Bloom's Taxonomy Assignment

1. Knowledge: Blogs can be used to deliver content remotely, provide news about a class or a school, and facilitate discussions about any sort of topic.

2. Comprehension: Teachers should integrate blogs into their teaching because a) they are open enough that any student in a class with an internet connection can access it, but private enough that teachers can limit access from the greater public; b) they allow easy access for students to quickly post their thoughts and discuss ideas with their peers any time of the day; and c) blogs are a familiar, customizable area that students are more likely to engage with, versus traditional teaching methods.

3. Application: I could use blogs a) to facilitate a discussion board around a particular subject, such as "Chemistry in Agriculture," and post relevant materials to it; b) as a way for students to work collaboratively in groups and share their research data for a group project; c) as a supplement to regular classes, with extra material plus notes for students who could not attend class for whatever reason

4. Analysis: I would argue that blogs would be most useful when facilitating discussion type things, or when the communication needs to be open for a whole class to comment on. However, blogs seem to be fairly linear affairs, and often conversations can get bogged down in a sea of comments, obscuring the initial points being made. Blogs do not have the structure that static web sites are capable of. In short, I think that each has their uses, and they are best used in combination to achieve different goals.

5. Synthesis: Blogging will change my role from being the deliverer of information to a facilitator of discussions, as students are now able to bring in their own ideas and information to post. However, I will also need to be more vigilant with privacy issues and abuse of the system, as people tend to put many comments up that can be hurtful, intentionally or otherwise. Thus I will need to educate about web safety and privacy as well.

6. Evaluation: Disadvantages of blogs include a) privacy issues relating to people outside of the intended class accessing information about students; b) students leaving comments designed to hurt other individuals, if a blog is not directly supervised by a teacher; and c) maintaining a blog could be a potentially onerous task, and could significantly increase a teacher's workload, especially in the initial stages of setting a blog up.