After going through Thing 3 and exploring educational blogs in the classroom, I feel more confident that I will be able to incorporate a blog for my students in the near future. Especially helpful to me was the list of 33 ways to use blogs in the classroom or an educational setting. Even something as simple as having students post individual hypotheses before meeting with a lab group to perform an experiment would be a start. The Social Studies teacher on my team uses blogs for some units for students to comment and he says it is successful. Students seem to like it and he reads comments online rather that collect as HW papers to grade.
I am still amazed at the complexity of most of the blogs. I just don't know where they get the time to create something that complex (or at least it looks that way to me!) The first example on the list was incredible, with all of the links provided. I am easily sidetracked and ended up visiting Google LitTrips and spent some time at Google Body, which I will use as a resource for my students. Also fascinating was the link to YouTube Time Machine, allowing me to search a desired year (high school, college) for popular songs, TV commercials. Maybe not so practical for a science classroom, but perhaps educational value in Social Studies!
As I browsed the blogs on the list, I noticed that some were a bit more simple and at least one was a collaborative effort with a teacher but produced by students. I did comment on a few of the blogs, and on the only other fellow 23 things traveler at this point. I changed a few of my settings on the blog, as suggested by the very helpful video. The embedded videos are helpful because you can pause, try what they say , and go back to them. I am looking forward to giving blogging a try on a unit with my students. After seeing the possible educational applications, I can definitely see a place for them in future lessons.
As someone who does blog a bit on a variety of subjects I can tell you that, from my perspective anyway, blogs just grow over time.
ReplyDeleteBlogs with multiple authors grow faster but for the most part they are a continually growing webform.
As far as use in the classroom...
I have always thought that if a student writes for p3 (peer, parents, public) consumption that they seem to write better, take more time etc. I was encouraged by the recent PBS special on Digital Learning that there is actual real world experience to back that up.
Two of the teachers in Miller-Driscoll are contemplating a 2nd grade poetry blogs. I'll keep you all posted.