Connections in the Blogosphere

It was a pleasure reading the journals of my classmates these past two months. While I did not read every single post, I’m pretty sure I got to the great majority of them. The diversity of ideas combined with the range of grade levels and geographic locations made for compelling reading. Picking just a couple of sites to comment on seems unfair so instead I am going to give you my take on what makes a good blog as it relates to this class. A disclaimer... I did not always practice what I preach here - sometime life gets in the way and you have to hit that post button, ready or not.

I enjoyed the posts best that added new details and information to the topic. Having already visted and read the course content, I didn’t feel the need to reread them again in someone else words. That is why the personal stories held so much interest throughout the course. Beside offering new info, they also brought concrete meaning to sometimes abstract science concepts. Personal stories also allowed me to make a connection with the author, which can lead to valuable insights. The high school science teachers are the go-to guys for true expertise on subject matter, art teachers demonstrate right brain thinking, young teacher bring unfettered excitement and enthusiasm, and retired teachers share a wealth of experience.

For me, succinct was good. In this setting, I feel the blog should capture the essential essence of the particular module. Writers who captured the wonder of the natural world usually captured my attention as a reader. Tied to this is an economy of visual media. Every image should be an attention grabber and there were some awesome ones out there, including many excellent author composed photos. That said, fuzzy, pixelated, or too small pictures hindered otherwise good blogs. I was glad to see fewer Google Earth screen shots as we went along. They sometimes don’t capture the beauty of the original image.

The real value of taking a course like this is the sharing of teaching ideas and quality websites. Some folks are doing amazing things. It was especially cool to hear veteran science teachers share thoughts on how they managed to convey complex ideas to their kids. I now have more excellent science links than I will use in this lifetime.

I admired those who consistently considered Native connections. For me, living in a community that is not primarily Native Alaskan made that aspect of my blogging less compelling. It was harder work tracking down the stories or the individuals. In fact, much of the info I found about native connections came from non-native sources. I could write a blog just about that topic alone.

A few things that I personally was not fond of included harsh color schemes, especially when used with text, small fonts, poor grammar, multiple typos, and photos of large, dead, big game animals (not that they weren't cool photos, they just seem out of context to the subject at hand).

Finally, kuddos folks who figure out how to do neat sidebars, whole page background graphics, slideshow, embedded NPR stations, and the like. They really added to your websites... wish I knew how to do that.