Blogs, a great way for discussing topics of your choice. Keeping a teacher blog for a classroom is a great way of informing parents of what's going on inside the classroom. These blogs can be updated daily, weekly, or monthly. It's a useful tool because parents have the ability to leave comments on each blog.
Your individual blog can also be designed to your liking. Pictures, links, color of fonts, and background color can all be added.Blogs can also be kept up by students. Depending on age group a student can be assigned weekly (as opposed to the teacher) to update the classroom blog and inform parents in what's been done at the end of the week.
Another interesting idea could be to have each student (with parent supervision) keep a blog to share with classmates and teacher on a specific topic done that week in the classroom. According to David Huffaker "weblogs are an excellent way to fuse educational technology and storytelling inside the classroom and beyond school walls. Because their format is similar to a personal diary, where recounting tales and autobiographical events is prevalent, blogs provide an arena where self–expression and creativity are encouraged. Its linkages to other bloggers establish the same peer–group relationships found in nonvirtual worlds. Its "underdetermined" design, where a system is engaging, yet intuitive and easy to learn (Cassell, 2002), makes it equitable for many age groups and both genders, and simple for teachers to implement. Being situated within the Internet allows bloggers to access their blogs anywhere and anytime an Internet connection is available, an opportunity for learning to continue outside the classroom. Blogs are both individualistic and collaborative. Blogs promote self–expression, a place where the author can develop highly personalized content. Yet blogs connect with an online community — bloggers can comment and give feedback to other bloggers, and they can link to fellow bloggers, creating an interwoven, dynamic organization. In the classroom, students can have a personal space to read and write alongside a communal one, where ideas are shared, questions are asked and answered, and social cohesion is developed."Resource: http://frodo.lib.uic.edu/ojsjournals/index.php/fm/article/view/1156/1076
Picture: http://www.thethinkingstick.com/starting-the-school-year-off-with-a-blog/
Great post about the power of blogs! I've just discovered this within the past 5 or 6 months. I liked the quote you included by Huffaker about blogs being a way to use storytelling outside of the classroom walls. I had made a science blog for my class that was kind of like this. I would post pictures of labs we had completed with text that would review the "story" of the lab as it played out. The kids got really excited to see themselves on the internet.
ReplyDeleteI also liked that you included that kids can also make their own blogs. This is something that I haven't tried yet. It would be hard to find time for such a project during the regular school day, but it would be an excellent extension to connect school with home learning.
Thanks for the post and the ideas!
Lydia
I enjoyed reading your post about blogging. I chose the same topic this week and it was nice to see someone else's point of view as well. I definitely agree that blogs are a great way to keep parents informed of what is going on in the classroom. I hadn't even thought about the possibility of parents posting comments on the blog, but that is a great idea to get feedback from them. I would make sure to be clear to them that personal issues need to be addressed in person, however, general feedback would be great.
ReplyDeleteI also like the idea of students making their own blogs, or at least giving input into the blog that you write for the class. Having them take turns writing the post for that week would be a wonderful way to get them writing. You could even have students edit posts before they are posted online.
You found some great information about blogs. Thank you for sharing!
Tiffany
Very informative post about the benefit of blogs in education. As we all know, they are a wonderful way to see what's on the minds of our peers and they provide a chance to see another point of view.
ReplyDeleteI love being able to use blogs for reading and commenting on books and other literature materials. This is truly a wonderful tool and an easier way than a standard worksheet that the kids fill out and turn in.
Great post!