Student Blogging - In High School Math?!

Thursday's #moedchat was all about blogging in the classroom. And if the energy flowing in the chat was any indication, I'm apparently missing out on the fun.

The chat was moderated by the amazing +William Chamberlain (@wmchamberlain), a #comments4kids advocate, an EduBlog nominated writer many times over, and general tweep I trust. Beyond William, my sister, @JenBearden is in her second year blogging with her 5th graders at http://kidblog.org/MrsBeardensClass2012/

The archive is here. We had a great, enthusiastic chat about the purpose of kid blogging, defining the meaning and purpose of "authentic audience" and explored what makes kid blogging transition from another assignment to a transformative experience. A lot of good experiences were shared, and I know the power of reflection in learning for myself in teacher professional development, but my perception for now is that most classroom bloggers fall into one of 3 categories:

• Elementary teacher
• English/Communication Arts teacher
• History teacher

I'm completely in favor of writing in the content area, and believe in my heart that writing/reflecting in math can improve your little thinkers' reasoning and understanding of the content, but it feels like an impossibility to integrate for my 50 minutes a day. @jenbearden says that her 5th graders write about math often, but I still think its "cheating" because elementary teachers have so much more flexibility with time allotment in their room. (How much learning time do high school/middle school students lose moving from class to class?!)

My Current Perception

Can it be done?

If you've been to any number of PD sessions, conferences, or graduate classes as a teacher, you're probably used to hearing something like, "How would this work in the math classroom?" The facilitator, bless their heart teaches NOT math, has passion for their content, but has no perspective on integrating it fully in your subject. And their waiting for you to figure it out. :) 

The "How would this work in math?" stage is how I feel about classroom blogging, so I'm just going to start my research how I would direct my students. Google. Storify. 

Now that I've even begun reflecting on this I know I've got to try, but I need your help! What experience do you have with high school math students blogging? What teacher experts do you know?