Good morning and welcome to Going Live with Blogging. Your first step in entering the blogosphere is to take a moment and think about how blogs and blogging might help teachers. How about students?
Because Writing Matters…
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Exploring writing in an electronic age
Good morning and welcome to Going Live with Blogging. Your first step in entering the blogosphere is to take a moment and think about how blogs and blogging might help teachers. How about students?
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Blogs and blogging will help teachers with the motivation aspect of writing. Many times, as a teacher, I am told that a student would write more if they could type rather than handwrite their journals. By having my students blog, they will be able to concentrate on their message rather than their “sore” hand.
My only concern is the amount of time spent reading their comments as well as controlling their message to the outside world.
Dee
Blogging will help my independent study students belong to an educational community. They do not see each other face to face very often, so they can use this as a space for “class discussion” of topics I start and they finish.
I’d love to do a “I-search” project in real-time on issues from “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.”
I’m so excited about the possibilities of blogging to connect the students at our independent study school with one another and with the adults who are on board to support them. As readers, as writers, as thinkers…the promises are many!
Blogging allows me to direct the student attention to different ways to approach a lesson. Also, I will be able to video a lesson which will allow a student to view at a later date.
Student will be able to add their comments which can be very helpful with a lesson as kid language is very important.
I’m waffling between using blog and pbwiki, but I think there is a place for both in my classroom. The wiki will provide lots of info for parents and students, where the blog may be more useful for students. Blogging could be useful for students to ask what terms mean, clarification of assignments, but it will only be useful if it stays current and is checked often. Blogs are also a way to allow specific interests of students to blossom, where they can attract others of a like mind set.
Mary Ann, 3rd grade teacher
Blogging can help my students and I better communicate. When there is a misunderstanding about an assignment this is a way for them to ask me what to do, even when they are at home. Blogging is also a way for the students that are not the question asker in class to feel more comfortable about asking for understanding, by posting a comment or question about the assignment.
Blogging is also a way for other teachers to see what I am doing and to give advice and borrow what I am doing in my room. Blogging is a conversation that I can have with anyone from around the world. The Montessori world is spread out and blogging is a way that I can talk to other Montessori teachers and learn from them.
trial…does this work?
This can be incredibly useful to all stakeholders, expanding students minds, using higher order thinking skills for both students and teachers, establishing best pratices for educators within their craft and to properly preapare are students for the 21st century,etc., etc. There is so much that this can launch, too much to articluate quickly.
I think blogging will useful to students of the 21st generation. Combining education, standards and innovative ideas can help both students and teachers connect in the classroom environment.
*note: Gail the above email is not correct the part before at is correct… I dont want it displayed.
Blogging will provide my 4th graders their first chance to express themselves with technology! Many of them do not have access to computers and technology at home. By providing my students with blogging opportunities, they can be successful in their future educational endeavors!
Your workshop has opened my eyes to possibilities that were previously hazy and obscure! “If I had but world enough and time,” many of these ideas would be immediately incorporated in my teaching. But, even as it is, I know that some of the ideas discussed today will take root. Thanks so much!
I am the tyro in your classroom today. So everything you and the group talk about is really fresh and interesting. Thanks for the education.
I really am interested in using blogging with my seniors. I want them to reflect upon and critically analyze several overarching questions with respect to Brave New World. I hope that reflecting in private and feeling the freedom to create (and see) an answer in written form prior to “expressing” the thought, will encourage deeper, more critical analysis.
S
@jennie
Good to see you. I think this will make teaching writing sooo much easier for your site. Isn’t this cool?
Creating a conversation (for teenagers) in technology puts them in their comfort zone. This is the tech generation, and they own the net. Give them a blog or MySpace page and they will wax eloquent with profound thoughts. Give them a notebook in a classroom, and they revert to awkward, lame-duck communicators who struggle to capture their thoughts on paper. Put the person in their own element and watch them bloom!
The fundamental purpose of teaching language is to foster critical thought while giving our students the tools to be able to express those thoughts and defend them. Through blogging they will be exposed to far more ideas than they will be in the confines of a classroom, and it gives them time to formulate their thoughts and responses so we can see who they truly are. I think reflective thinking needs time to marinate, and what better place to “take your time and consider all possibilities” than through blogging! NOW I can see what’s going on in their minds because they feel safe and confident in revealing who they are!
@kkraemer
passing notes in class electronically
@John
If you would like to share your plans, I would be grateful.
S
@shirley
What’s a tyro?
Travis, any luck?
Attn: Shirley
I love your spirit of growth!! But, what’s a tyro?
@ Mary Ann
Do you find wiki a lot easier? For yourself or for your students?
Dena
testing again
I love the idea of creating a sense of community via technology. In fact, my Master’s thesis is on analyzing the effect of face to face conferencing vs. online e-conferencing.
Many of the alternative education students I now teach are incredibly intelligent. They are smart enough to have circumvented the “system” for many years before their poor choices or challenging personal situations finally caught up with them. Traditional forms of education (lecture based, teacher-centric “learning”) haven’t worked for them. In fact, I would argue that those who have “succeeded” in many comprehensive sites do so in spite of the education they receive. Bright, innovative teachers can be found out there but schools also often contain teachers (and administrators!) who preserve the status quo. To be frank, our system of education is broken and it works against those who want to revolutionize the way knowledge is disseminated to the students who sit in their classrooms. Unfortunately, fear of litigation clamps down the “mouths” of many a district.
Few older teachers utilize blogs, podcasts, Blackboard, or other forms of on-line learning, although many of my colleagues are interested in researching these technologies. This is probably because of the time issue; it takes time to receive training; it is labor and time intensive to become proficient at using technologies; it takes a lot of time to create, implement and monitor blogs and websites.
However, I have observed that my students absolutely LOVE using technology. Whether it’s texting their friends, accessing websites in a science, literature or history classroom or just composing their drafts electronically, I have noticed that the level of their engagement rises as the incorporation of technology increases.
I can’t wait to tap into their virtual world and meld it with our daily, “face to face” interactions as a learning community.