Monday, October 8, 2012
Chapter 1 & 2
After reading chapters 1 and two in the book, what ideas do you have about using a blog in your classroom? How could a blog impact your students' learning? Be specific. (I'd also like for everyone to use the sample blogging letter on pp 15-16 and create your own letter to go home to parents in preparation for blogging in your classrooms--let us know how well/not well that goes for your students and why you think it happens as it does. . . )
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After reading chapters 1 and 2 I see how blogging could be beneficial in the classroom. When doing a unit students could collaborate on the computer with each other and get immediate feedback. I could also post questions in a blog and students could comment and answer and see other student’s answers. Third grade is doing a project on the computer every six weeks. Last six weeks we completed a project on North America. This six weeks we will be completing another project while utilizing the computers. During this time I will be incorporating blogging into my classroom. This is going to be a challenge for me because I’m not a blogger, but I see how it can be very beneficial for my students.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like a great way to get 3rd graders involved with blogging while learning and collaborating with classmates. I hope it goes well!
DeleteI also plan to use blogging with my project for this 6 weeks. I have used this in the past when I went through Intel and my students loved being able to respond to each other via the Internet. The only drawback I see to blogging is the time it will take them to type the text in versus writing it, but I think this will get better with time. The great thing will be how easily I can go in and comment on their assignment and they could easily go in and respond back. I think this will be a great way for students to see their learning and parents could easily view this as well. This would be a great way to take their learning to a deeper level as they collaborate with each other and I pose new questions for them to ponder.
DeleteAfter reading the first 2 chapters, I could see using a blog for my speech students to discuss "using their best speech outside of the speech room." Students could blog about real-life situations they find themselves in and describe how their speech sounded without me being there to guide them. They could ask for assistance from their speech teacher and their peers on how to use their speech strategies away from school, even in the privacy of their own home. It's hard for students to remember difficult situations to report back to me from one speech session to the next. Blogging could be a great way for these students to inform me of situations as soon as they happen, so that I can provide real-time solutions.
ReplyDeleteThat would be great for your speech students! Also, some may post scenarios on a blog where as they may not want to talk about them in class with the other students.
DeleteI have just started leading a project-based learning group each morning, and I think a blog would be a great way to enhance this instruction. A blog could be used to give students helpful websites to conduct their research, allow them to record their thoughts, respond and collaborate with each other, or participate in a book study. Our world is becoming one of technological literacy and global communication, so integrating technology into instruction is becoming increasingly important as we are faced with creating a learning environment that is appealing to a wide range of learners. Today’s students are competent and fluent in the technologies that are available to them at home and outside of school, and they use them regularly in their personal lives. It is necessary for teachers to find ways to bring these technologies into the classroom in order to close the gap that exists between home and school and engage students in ways that are familiar and comfortable for them. Blogging would be one way to help close this gap and increase student interest and motivation.
ReplyDeleteI agree! I can see how most of my students just seem like they are in their "element" whenever we use technology. They get so excited and immediately are engaged! I can tell that they are eager to use technology and most of them already know how to do most things or pick up on it very quickly as they have been submersed in it in other places in their lives.
DeleteThere are endless ways that I can use a blog with my students. They love to communicate and collaborate and blogging provides an easy venue to do this through. They can blog about a question that I pose and everyone can read and respond to each others' responses. My students love getting on their gmail and emailing each other so I know this will really spark their interest. They can post a journal in response to a prompt that I post and this will be a great way for them to share their journals. I also thought it would be neat to post ARMT+ reading questions so students could easily read other's responses to the questions. A blog for parents to use could also be beneficial as they could post questions about our class and others could visit the page in search for answers they may have about our class. The possibilities are endless with blogs and this is something that I think most of us could easily implement.
ReplyDeleteI plan to create a letter about using blogging in my classroom and send this home to parents. I believe most parents will be very receptive to this idea.
I think you are exactly right; there are endless ways to use blogging. You have some great ideas and as you get started I can't wait to hear the students we share talk about your collaborative efforts.
DeleteI am still skeptical about my kids using them just yet being so young. We are still working on sentences and structure. I agree that in the older classes it could be a great resource.
ReplyDeleteI am a bit skeptical too Jeanine. My main concern is getting the kids to the blog site without taking the entire day. Could it be pinned to the dashboard?? Typing in websites is a nightmare. Does anyone have a suggestion about getting the kids to the blog site easily? We used blogs with our intel lesson, but we weren't 1 to 1 then and I just typed in the site and the kids responded on one computer. I suppose that would still work. What will everyone else do?
DeleteI am also skeptical at this point in time.
DeleteI feel that closer toward the end of the year would be better because the little ones would have more experience using the keyboard, etc. Right now we are still searching for letters to type in the username and passwords.
Since students will often forget or are not as likely to share problem areas face-to-face, I could use a Weblog to invite student comments about areas of concern they have recognized in their own reading throughout the day/week. I could then address those specific concerns in my daily lessons. I could also have students make recommendations and comment on books they have enjoyed reading. This would create a good book list for other students to use. There are definitely endless numbers of ways to use Weblogs.
ReplyDeleteI think Webblog would be a great idea for the younger children and I think if we just gave the students in 1st grade a chance they might surprise us. They do utilize journals after all and this would just be like an on line journal. It might be an interesting idea. Try it and let us know how it goes!!!
DeleteAt this time, I don't know enough about blogs to see how I can use them in my instruction. I think the next chapter will give me more information. I agree with Jeanine. With our younger students it will be a challenge to make them appropriate yet meaningful to learning.
ReplyDeleteOK, I want to stay positive, but I am going to be honest. I feel nervous about blogging because of the difficulty for the students to access the blog site easily. But, once we get that worked out, it just might work. We are writing in Friday journals now and we list things we learned each week. I think this could be used in a blog of some type.
ReplyDeleteI haven't sent a parent note home yet. I want to have the details worked out before I tell parents about it. My parents have been very excited and supportive so far about our technology use and I think they will embrace blogging. (It this teacher can get it worked out without taking an entire class day to log in to the site.) Suggestions???
I also have not sent a parent note home yet. Autumn and I talked about pairing our students and letting the third graders help my first graders. We also had talked about the kids blogging with each other since the first graders think the third graders are "cool".
ReplyDelete