Technology Integration Activity – Initial Tool Choices

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For my Technology Integration Activity project, I am planning on making a previous version of a biology project more interactive and collaborative, and to allow for students to make more real life connection to the content. I plan on doing this by having the students create a blog that shares the information they have researched regarding infectious diseases and to look at the effects of our current Covid-19 pandemic. Through an online community they can see other student’s ideas and learn how to appropriately comment and interact with their peers online. This blog will also allow for the integration of different forms of media such as videos, infographics, online text and hyperlinking to appropriate articles. In this way, I am hoping for the students to interact with the biology content in a way that is more in line with how they access information on a daily basis, and teach them some digital literacy skills.

I envision this assignment using asynchronous tools such as creating blog posts and potentially accessing pre-recorded videos that will explain how to use some of the features of the blog website. After doing some research, I have found a few blog sites that I think would be useful. These include Blogger, WordPress, Weebly and Wix.

I found Blogger to be very simple and intuitive to use. I think this would be a great site to use with students that are just beginning to create blogs and will probably be the site I pursue for my Technology Integration Activity project. WordPress and Wix offer more customizable options that would allow for the creation of a more professional looking blog, but I think I would have to spend too much time teaching students how to use the site and therefore less time would be spent on learning the biology content.