Today, when I met with Bill, Edublogs was down for over 2 hours.  Now it is working great, but it was touch and go all day.  I think Edublogs might have been updating the entire site.  I kept being told to go have a cup of tea by the kind people of Edublogs–kind of funny .

Another weird thing–my Google Reader stopped updating my students’ posts and comments.  That’s not good.  I thought that no one was doing any work, but it turns out, I was just not being notified.

But, on the happy side, my students started getting comments on their blogs.  Bill suggested that I have them moderate their comments so they don’t get blog spam–now I just need to make sure they accept the comments.  We talked about the importance of accepting comments that have to do with your discussion, even if they are not in accord with their posts.  Free speech issue?

The kids seemed really excited that people were reading their blogs.  Now that I have all blogs adopted, I think I’ll send out another e-mail asking for just one comment from anyone who wants to be involved.  What a nice way for the community to get involved.

I made a survey for the kids to decide what segment they want to focus on–that will help narrow their research a bit.  But I want to make sure they pass on any sources they find to the other groups.

Next time, I think we need to have them look at the encyclopedia resources that Chris showed us–there should be some interesting websites cross-referenced there.

Documentary Ideas

• Many of the comments that were posted suggested watching Gore’s Inconvenient Truth.  Maybe we should have an after school showing.
• I also liked the comment that we should find out how far teachers drive to North High–that would be an easy survey to make.
• It would be fun to film students figuring out their carbon footprints–maybe people not from our class?