Saturday, January 17, 2009
How to apply blogging to students
Let me begin by saying that I think students should only be allowed to blog on a controlled site, otherwise they may come in contact with information and other materials that are not age-appropriate. I could post a lesson online in a blog and ask students to respond to the blog via a comment. Blogs promote more free and quick thinking, forcing students to comment on a post that they may not have been expecting. It causes them to think on their feet, and it may also encourage research to look into ways to answer my questions. Blogging could also be a fun way to encourage children to write, allowing them the freedom of a journal entry but in a more "hip" manner.
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I liked your idea of using the blog like a journal entry. It is something many teachers and students do already. It would be no added burden to the teacher for planning and it would probably be far more exciting for students to write in a blog than in a spiral notebook. It also gives the students validation for their written opinion and gives them a broader audience to share with. Everyone in the class could read the blog, how often do students pass around their journals for peers to read?
ReplyDeleteIt would be great to allow students to pass around journals once a week for other students to read. They could provide constructive feedback and post responses.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree about the "controlled site". It is a must. Another concern I have outside of this realm is that many students, especially ours in elementary school cannot type quickly which makes blogging more difficult. What do you think about this considering you work with primary students?
ReplyDeleteI agree, I think that blogging would be difficult for younger students. They do have a hard time typing. I feel that students need a computer time where students can be introduced to the computer and be given lessons on it. Do you think that teachers should be hired for this? Right now at our school the classroom teachers are responsible to fit this into our schedule. How can this be done when we only have 30 minutes for computer lab and we go every 7 days?
ReplyDeleteJust some insight on to the typing... my class this year is great! I know they don't all have computers at home but they are all pretty fast little typers. They get their stories published so much faster than I would have thought possible. Give them the chance to type and they will get better at it too. A good way to get them used to typing is have them type their stories or journal entries. This will help them get better at it then you can begin to get them ready for blogging by taking baby-steps with the typing at the beginning of the year and be blogging by the end.
ReplyDeleteThe children posting their journal entries is a great idea. I understand your thoughs about only having computer for 30 minutes once a week. That does make it hard to fit everything in. Would it be possible for you to have a computer center in your room? Do you have a parent that would be able to come and help in computer lab so you have another person to help?
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