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
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4 comments:
It's always interesting to see how other systems use technology. Fairfax County encourages teachers to use the Discussion Board or the Online Classroom for this type of thing....but they invested lots of $$$ in it, so they'd rather it was fully utilized. I used Blackboard a while ago with fifth graders as part of their Literature Circle assignment and discussion and it was very successful.
Beryl, you are so hands on and encouraging to teachers like me about using the latest technology at school. I can see that you are really enjoying being a TRT as apposed to a classroom teacher...I love the idea of using blogs for a book club. I'm sure the students will enjoy the novelty of the idea. I hope too that in the future this technology will move towards the students being able to interact with each other more instead of it being reliant on the teacher and their comments.
Thanks for sharing the link to your Guilford blogs. It is helpful to see how you are getting your students started in the blogging process. I am looking forward to reviewing your students' progress and seeing how they develop as bloggers throughout the semester.
I think trying anything new out of our comfort zone is hard. This is especially true for kids. They aren't sure and they want to do it correctly. I think the more practice and experience they get, the better they'll become. Thanks for the link to the Guilford blog Beryl! It's good to see the real thing!
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