The tools is the first post (apart from the Introduction) of a planned series of posts about getting a group of students to blog over this semester.
Jenn is going to get her students to use Flock, either from a Flash Drive, or, if they have them, laptops. Dave (who writes Academhack) lists the advantages of Flock – he’s getting me sold on it, though I wasn’t that keen the first time that I tried it. It was quite some time ago, and it seems to have improved since then.
They have decided to have WordPress based blogs, though whether they’ll go with it being hosted via WordPress or the EduBlogs hosting, they’ve not yet decided. I’m not sure if they’ve seen Elgg, or if they’ve rejected it. However, as one reason for using Flock is the ability to pick up WordPress, perhaps it was a technical reason, rather than a pedagogic one. It was a definite choice though for them to avoid the “blogs” that WebCT etc. offer …
I’ve had a look at the course requirements … it’s a writing course, so writing clearly is key, but, I see that students are only allowed to miss 4 sessions – and that includes illness etc., after that they start to get points deducted. I somehow can’t see that getting past people here!