Blog
Encouraging students to blog
3rd November 2008
One of the modules within the new version of Moodle allows students to write their own blogs. It provides a neat way for them to develop some blogging skills without having their output immediately available on the WWW.
Students can read the blogs of others within their course and perhaps glean some ideas for shaping a piece from their contemporaries. So as part of their economics homework last week, they were asked to write a blog on a topic of their choice. I read each and students can gain a small credit (of up to five marks) for their end of term assessment score for each of their weekly blogs. Nearly sixty blogs were produced and I will showcase some of them in the next couple of days. From a standing start we got a tremendous range of topics:
Topics ranged from
The falling demand for beer
Could Kazakhstan follow Iceland into national insolvency?
Malcolm Gladwell; Success from innovation and creativity
The IMF - a funding crisis?
Small businesses feel the squeeze….
Oil prices falling! not all good news….
Facing Depression, Tesco’s coming battle
The Economics of Prostitution : What you need to know!
The dominance of the iPod
Presidential Election to Boost Economy
Divorce Lawyers
Losing the Pounds: Blessing or Curse?
Risk and Irrationality
The Oil Problem
Household hoarding
Keynes in the US
Chevron
Why do over 3 million people watch Dragons Den in the UK?
‘Google’ extends global search ad lead. Yahoo falling behind?
A Disaster For Hedgefunds
Carry Trade and its consequences
The MUSIC industry
Have stock markets hit the floor?
Sony profits drop 72%
Cutting back? Not for Ronald McDonald
Jobs and Confidence - the important link
Consumption, and its part in the British Economic Crisis.
Soccer in crisis - the administration trap
Fear of recession finally hits US consumers
BP make a killing
Porsche holding increase rockets share price for Volkswagen
Have Westfield blown it with their latest venture?
Is Capitalism finished as we know it?
Japanese firms invest as the Nikkei crashes
For this week’s blog, students have to choose a market where conditions of supply and/or demand are changing and discuss how this is affecting prices and producers and consumers.
Further details about Moodle are available here
Geoff Riley
Geoff Riley FRSA has been teaching Economics for over thirty years. He has over twenty years experience as Head of Economics at leading schools. He writes extensively and is a contributor and presenter on CPD conferences in the UK and overseas.