EC&I 831 Week 3

*This post has been written as part of my journey as a Ph.D student through University of Regina.

Week 3 Blog Prompt

Write an introductory blog post that outlines your initial ideas for your major project (i.e., the “major” integration project, or the learning project). Be as detailed as possible.

At the end of the public school year Dr. Couros and I were able to sit down and discuss what this course could potentially look like given my specific job title and the independent study schedule. Part of this conversation included what the major project might look like since I no longer have my own classroom and the summer scheduling of the course would not allow for a case study approach with either students or staff members. However, reflecting on a previous classroom experience could be sufficient; given that an in-depth and critical lens was applied. With this in mind, I would like to center my major project on my previous integration of social media into my teaching practice when I was employed as a classroom teacher; specifically, an analysis of the open student blogging projects we completed between 2013-2018.

During this time period, we documented our learning through two different blogging projects. Both blogs were hosted via the Google platform Blogger/Blogspot and were completed with Grade 8 and Grade 11 students enrolled in science and history classes respectively. The blogs remain published and can be viewed at:

• Canadian History Told By Us
  • Posted to by Grade 11 Canadian History students
  • Active 2016-2018
• Mrs. T’s Classroom
  • Posted to by Grade 8 Science students
  • Active 2013-2015

The major project will be divided up into sections that include the following headings for each of the two blogs:

• Blog Setup
  • how the blogging platform was selected, published, maintained
  • administrative involvement
• Classroom Integration
  • student/family introduction
  • blog participation in the classroom
  • curricular coverage and assessment
• Strengths
• Challenges & Recommended Changes

Where applicable, the project will pull directly from previously published works including:

• student blog posts
• existing reflections and how they fit within my current understanding
  • blog posts from this blog
  • Twitter posts
  • published articles
  • podcast interviews