This is a relatively new course, being offered for the first time as an online only course, and will come with the advantages and challenges. Together we will make it awesome.

Dates:
      Official start: January 9, 2012
      Official end: February 4, 2012

Course Description:
   This course will explore uses of blogs in education, focusing on creating blogs for both teaching and professional development purposes. Students will learn to create blogs using a variety of free blogging tools, add media to blogs, market their blogs, communicate with parents, students, colleagues, and professionals via blogs, teach with blogs, embed blogs in their websites, and more.

Course Goals:
   Through readings, activities and class discussions, students will:

• Become familiar with a variety of free and inexpensive blogging tools appropriate for educational use
• Develop skills for blogging, including both production skills and administrative skills
• Design, produce and a maintain an educational blog
• Develop a marketing plan for their blog so that they can reach a targeted audience

Activity Summary:
   During this course, the student will:

• Explore blogs online (write a review of features and characteristics of blogs)
• Explore the use of blogs in education (research literature on use of blogs in society and in education)
• Explore and exchange ideas about safety
• Establish a blog for educational purposes, with external sources, connections to other blogs, and appropriate for a variety of targeted audiences
• Discuss blogging from the instructional design point of view
• Establish an educational blog for use by students for a collaborative project and for discussion
• Use a class blog for some projects in this class
• Discuss techniques and develop a marketing plan

Readings:
   Readings will a collection of sources including professional journals, Internet resources and other blogs. The instructor and students will collaborate researching and identifying useful sources.

Assignments:
   Assignments will parallel the objectives and activities and will primarily be submitted through the use of blogs, typically blogs established by the students themselves. Unless otherwise stated all writings will be on the student's blog.

1. Create a blog, typically in blogger.com
2. Write a review of features of different blogs
3. Research and write a review of how blogs are used in society
4. Read and write a review on the use of blogs in education
5. Participate in regular bloggiong discussions, using the blogs by commenting on other blogs, on the use of blogs in education
6. Include in each blog different forms of media such as videos, images, and a variety of documents
7. Research, identify and connect to other related and relevant blogs
8. Establish an effective process for viewing other related blogs
9. Develop and write about a plan for promoting or marketing each blog.

Grading Criteria:

• Setting up appropriate blog - 10%
• Personal view of blogs and current use and challenges- 10%
• Review of features of blogs - 10%
• Review of use of blogs in society - 10%
• Review of use of blogs in education - 10%
• Discussion participation- 10%
• Inclusion of multi media - 10%
• Report on connections to other blogs - 10%
• Plan for connecting to other blogs - 10%
• Plan for marketing the blog - 10%

Grading and deadlines have been used for decades for monitoring students progress. While Western Oregon University does not grant recognition of learning without fulfilling the requirements of a course, it is my opinion that first and foremost is the education of the individual. If the students complete all activities and assignments with conscientious effort, with my support and supervision, all students will achieve the highest level of recognition and therefore the student should focus on learning and not on the score or grade.