I attended a presentation this week in an Education class where several Vassar students presented how WordPress sites could be to augment the educational experience.
The links:
http://pages.vassar.edu/elcunningham/
http://pages.vassar.edu/niengelhardt/
http://education-through-discussion.socialgo.com/
http://pages.vassar.edu/sajones/

Write!
http://pages.vassar.edu/elcunningham/
Blogs to encourage writing workshops for students.

Every Day Biology
http://pages.vassar.edu/niengelhardt/

Goals:

• increase vocabulary
• increase concept mastery and confidence in subject
• increase parent child interaction
• break out of teaching to the test
• documentation

Challenges:

• comments weren’t searchable – impeded the dictionary
• evaluating sources – not covered, assumed

Education Through Discussion Christopher Doscher
http://education-through-discussion.socialgo.com/
Facebook for education
supports video chat

Ethical Issues in Science
http://pages.vassar.edu/sajones/
Samantha Jones
Students are using internet and computers at home, when they come to school and work on non-networked computers it isn’t as relevant, nearly everyone is on facebook, teachers don’t know what facebook is.
Incorporating new technologies into the class day would connect home and school life
The blog can spark that connection.
The goal was to integrate science, technology, literacy and ethical issues.

Discussion:
How do you think wordpress could be used to improve the Vassar writing program or the experience at Vassar?
Great to make cross disciplinary connections and to archive work (eportfolios), open up the discussion past the “make a post about this topic” in Moodle or blackboard.

Epilogue:

It would have been great if the class had gotten this far halfway through the semester so they could put their theories to the test. It was time well spent and everyone in the class has a greater portfolio of technology tools to dip into should they become teachers.