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Standards Soup
By audhill | October 23, 2007
I have been looking everywhere for rubrics that I can use in my classes for blogging. I will undoubtably have to create my own shortly. But, in my search, I came upon this posting by Jeff Utrecht of The Thinking Stick. He’s struggling with whether we need tech standards, and I think we do.
If we think that technology should be ubiquitous and no one in any subject area should feel like they are doing their jobs unless they integrate technology in their instruction, then how they use that technology, which technologies are used, the purpose of the integration of that particular techology should be a part of the teacher’s self assessment. The sword cuts both ways, my friend. You can’t be all fired up about how essential technology is and then say, “we get a pass on how well we’re using it.” You have to be the spoon, you can’t just bend it. (matrix reference that may not mean a thing)
Personally, I’m searching everywhere for the rubrics Jeff posted once a long time ago for blog assessment. If anyone can point me in their direction, or in the direction of a really useful blog assessment tool, I’d appreciate it. I’m looking for something pretty comprehensive that can also guide me (isn’t that what standards are for?)
I’m not one of those people who thinks that just because the kid can upload and is excited to be blogging that my job is done. I could say it’s all about the content (because I’m an English teacher), but in the blogosphere I’m much more interested in what constitutes a good blog (in my view that would be everything from good syntax and structure, to meaningful and well researched content, to visually appealing format, to branding, to purpose, to hooks that keep people coming back, to brevity (see soul of wit), to commenting elsewhere, to use of peripherals such as images, videos, polls, hypertext etc.
Otherwise it’s noodling and a waste of their time (no matter how excited by it they are)