"...can my students create a blog and give me the URL to it yet have it hidden from anybody else who may stumble upon it?"
This question got me curious. I checked Blogger and you can protect your blog so that only a select group of individuals have access. Also, with Moodle the blogging tool is integrated with the platform, so it can be restricted to just individuals who have access to the site. A nice feature with the Moodle blog is that you can adjust the access setting with each post.
Nancy pointed us to the Rethinking Teaching in the Sciences archived SCoPE discussion. That prompted me to mention another archived discussion that may be of interest: Blogging to Enhance Learning Experiences: February 12-25, 2007. I noticed on our "emergent themes" mindmeister map we listed mis-uses of blogs in the classroom:
- combining very personal with academic (and a caution with Facebook for sure!)
- a place to post homework