It seems to me that using blogs in the classroom can be quite a wonderful resource for students. It is a great way to incorporate online-technological resources with course instruction. Students are able to interact both in and out of class while posting and responding along with their peers. It allows students to interact with one another outside of the "typical school setting". Using blogs will allow so much more learning because it is not restricted to the four walls of the classroom.
It can be a good resource for continued classroom discussion, assignment information, or even just casual, friendly interactions with classmates to make the learning experience much more inviting and open. It also may allow students to display/present projects or other student work to fellow classmates and teachers which will allow for instant feedback and a terrific form of student reflection.
As a 7-12 Technology teacher who teaches both middle school technology and high school electronics, it is evident that using blogs can truly help the overall performance of a class. It helps to create a stronger rapport with those students who are more timid and shy in class and have more confidence behind their input through the internet. Using blogs in the classroom will make for a much richer learning experience due to the fact that students are free to comment and post their ideas and opinions of course content and group discussions. It will also help to develop the necessary skills most students will someday face with the ever-growing and expanding technological world we live in today.
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Dan
ReplyDeleteYou wrote “students are free to comment and post their ideas and opinions of course content and group discussions.” How do you monitor the content of what students post? Is this something you are currently doing or is it a plan for the future? I recently was speaking to a Tech Ed teacher in my county (we have county wide systems in MD) and he has it set up so posts can only be seen after he approves them. Do you know how to do that? Finally if you are currently using a Blog do you require student to participate and is participation part of the students’ grade?
Chris
ReplyDeleteI have not yet begun to create blogs in my classroom. I am a first year teacher and was basically "getting my feet wet" and developing a concrete base for my career as an educator. However, I certainly do plan to begin using blogs in my classroom as I described, but I had not thought about the content of what the students were writing. You bring up a great point and that is something I'll have to look into. I do not yet know how to protect the blog from inappropriate content, but I will certainly look into how to "approve or disapprove". Also, I feel that for the first few "pilot" years, I would use this as a non-graded participation. I would use it more for feedback and student input. But in time, I could see it being a very useful graded assignment. Thanks for your input!
Students comments and postings can be monitored. For example, as the Admin of the blog, you can set it up so all posts and comments have to come to you and be approved before actually being posted on the blog. This can be done when you are setting up the blog. On blogger, you go to your setting and go to Permissions. This is where you can choose who gets to see the blog and if others can be authors. Under the comments in the settings, you can set it up to show where you are notified of comments being posted or outside people commenting on things.
ReplyDeleteWhat will you use the blog for? Is it for free writing or will students respond to a prompt? I agree with your observation students who are shy may be more likely to share in this form. How will you handle situations where students post inappropriate material?
ReplyDeleteIT sounds like your students would enjoy this activity. I would make sure that students' comments are not automatically posted to another's blog or journal before checking with you first. I may also review how to be a good critic and if you leave comments, leave 1 positive comment as well. Do you think it would be a journal or class content discussion?
ReplyDeleteThat's great that you teach technology. I remember taking the course in high school, and all we did was simply type. Times have certainly changed! You have an unique opportunity to expose kids to a variety of technlogical advances.
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