Scott+Rollins

Scott Rollins,srollins@skschools.net,South Kingstown HS,Sports Marketing Class ,Grades 11-12 Over the past week I have been spending time thinking of ideas on how to implement my blog into my classroom. I teach a variety of classes and I think my blog will certainly work better in my junior and senior level courses. Since my blogging ability is at a very introductory level, my Sports Marketing class might be the best course to experiment in. Each week in my Sports Marketing class, I have students find a current event article that involves whatever topic we were discussing in class. Every Friday the students are responsible for answering a few questions (the basic: who, what, where, why, when, type questions.) and completing an article summary which is handed in. I think that my class blog might be an excellent forum for these assignments. Instead of having to collect all the summary papers, students can post their responses to the blog. It will give each class member a chance to read their peers comments and opinions, and make comments of their own. I think a fringe benefit of using a blog for the current events is that it eliminates the traditional “I forget my summary at home” excuse which seems to occur weekly! I want my students to be comfortable expressing their opinions and comments in a forum that should eliminate some of the peer pressure that is sometimes created in face to face conversations. I also want my students to be able to read what other students had to say about similar topics and be able to gain other viewpoints. In my business classes, I have always stressed the importance of reading up on current events, and now the blog will enable the students to not only read up, but read what others in the class have to say. Each article summary will have to be related to the notes and discussions we were having in class during the week. For example, if we are doing my lesson on “Baseball Stadium Financing” then each student is responsible for finding an article related to that topic and summarizing by Friday. We often discuss, during the week, in class what is going on in the sports world related to our topic so that each student at least has some keywords to search when looking for an article. For each week’s article, students are responsible for answering the following in a summary: These answers can now be placed on our class blog as opposed to being handed in each week. This will also help in the case of a student being absent on the Friday that a summary is due. I think that using this forum, I will now dedicate some time each following Monday to discuss what was posted on the blog. Hearing some of the comments and verbally discussing the articles each Monday will help the auditory learners who maybe didn’t understand a post. I’m anticipating that some of the article reviews will lead to lengthy discussions and possibly even some new project ideas. I think the combination of writing their response and also verbally discussing their responses will enable more comprehension and understanding. I think that the assessment for this is the hard part. Normally I would grade their current event assignments on a √+. √, √-, 0 grading scale based on quality of answers and depth of knowledge and understanding. Basically the √+ =100, the √= 80 and the √- = 60. I think I’ll have to create a rubric that clearly defines what a √+ post looks and reads like as compared to a √ and √- worthy post. I would also like to add an “appropriateness” part into the rubric, so that students understand the notion of respecting fellow classmate’s opinions and view points. I plan on spending some time during the first week of class explaining the notion of what an appropriate response is and what I don’t consider appropriate. My fear is that without the face to face, some students might use the blog as an opportunity to “trash” a fellow student. I will set up the blog so that I can moderate the comments before they are posted though. Ideally, I would have liked to test this out with during the last few weeks of class this year. It would have been nice to be able to work out some of the kinks over the summer. I do teach this class in both the fall and spring semester which is nice, I can use the fall semester class as a sort of “guinea pig” for my attempt at a class blog. I’m sure that like everything else in education, my class blog will be an ever evolving tool that hopefully will add to the class experience. One goal of mine is to eventually develop a lot of different ways to incorporate the class blog into my curriculum. I’m thinking that if this project is successful, it will open up many other project ideas for the class. Another goal is to have a truly collaborative classroom where students feel comfortable expressing their ideas and thoughts, and the class blog seems like a good way of fostering this.
 * Introduction:**
 * Goals:**
 * Pre Activities:**
 * Writing Assignment:**
 * When did the article take place?
 * Who are the parties involved?
 * What are some of the implications involved?
 * Why is this article important?
 * Where did this article take place?
 * Extension and Adaptation:**
 * Assessment:**
 * Trials, Tribulations, Tests, Missteps and Future Goals!**