Some additional digital newspapers include:
Utah Digital Newspapers
Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers
California Digital Newspaper Collection
One of the major drawbacks for using Blackboard has been collecting late work for assignments. If you do not have a hard and fast deadline AND record your assignment grades in Blackboard, keeping track of work turned in after you have started grading can be a hassle.
One solution to consider is the use of a Google form that students fill out after every assignment is completed. There are a couple of advantages to this approach:
- easier management of what work is completed in a self-paced class
- additional columns can be used in the spreadsheet for assignment grade and teacher comments
- If you have the student input their student ID number, then the spreadsheet can be used to import grades into Gradespeed
- For parent-teacher meetings, you can filter the spreadsheet to get a timeline of the student’s work completion. How long does it take for an assignment to be completed? How many assignments have been completed in the last week?
My plan is to implement this in a cross-curricular project I’m beginning this week. The Google form will allow both teachers to see student progress and grade assignments/leave comments on the collaborative work. Here is the form.
Good or bad, long or short, I’ve decided to set a goal for 2010 of writing one post per day.
We can argue as to the merits of writing one post per day. I’m going to categorize it as practice, but I’m hoping that it may turn into more than that. I know I learn at least one thing per day, though I usually just add them to Delicious and then promptly forget them. Hopefully, if I share them, they can become more useful.
364 to go!