Excitement and Frustrations of a Blogger

I think blogging opens up a world of possibilities in the classroom. Students are given a non-threatening way of opening up and sharing their thoughts and feelings about current events and class readings or through creative writings they have composed. Effective teachers are constantly trying to use multiple modalities to teach their students. Blogging will especially reach out to those introverted students who dispise being put on the spot and speaking in front of peers. What a powerful tool this can become for them!

LCPS has just begun allowing the classroom blog on their web service. However, it is still is its early phases and guidelines for use have just been established. These guidelines put many limitations on how we are able to put this tool to use in our classrooms. As TRT I am a little frustrated that students are discouraged from being the blog creators. They may only comment on what the teacher has written. I am hopeful that in a few years as this technology emerges as beneficial we will be allowed more freedoms. My other frustration lies in that once a comment has been made you cannot comment on a comment. The comment section is strictly linear. As the teacher I was hoping to leave positive reinforcement or constructive criticism on what students have posted. However, the commenting featue of our web program does not make this possible.

With that being said all and all I am excited about the blog project we have started at Guilford. We have just begun a "Book Club Blog" with one one of the 5th grade teachers. The teacher is using this blog to facilitate discussion prior to meeting with her reading groups. She is hoping that this will springboard her discussions and future literature circle discussions amongst students. She is seeing this as an immense time saver leading up to her meetings with reading groups as she'll know some of what they are thinking prior to meeting. It will be fun to see both the teacher and student mature and grow over time with the use of blogging. If you get a chance I encourage you to check it out!

Guilford 5th grade book club blog

Welcome!

Welcome to my little world of tech insights and thoughts on the web. I hope to provide my views and opinions about Web2 tools we will be using this semester in my Instructional Technology grad program, as well as offer suggestions of practical use of these tools in the elementary classroom. Enjoy!