Tuesday, March 9, 2010
How I Might Use a Blog in My Classroom
The Principal and supervisors are always asking the teachers in every subject area at our school to add more writing assignments in our lesson plans. As I read The Second Edition; ‘Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms,” by Will Richardson, he list many classroom uses of weblogs. The one I like for my class is posting prompts for writing on weblogs. I teach at an urban school district in a city that was rank as one of the poorest in the country. I teach math, science and social studies to special education students. My students are always talking about what they download from the internet or what they said on MySpace. Out of the 12 students I have only 1 student doesn’t have a computer with internet access. But that one student has relatives living near him that does. As a homework assignment I could start simple and post on my classroom blog, a writing prompt about reflection of today’s lesson or open ended questions related to one of the lessons they had. I would give credit for just participating. Since each student posting will see every reply to the post, I will allow student to respond to each other. I could talk to other teachers in the school and combine classes and homework weblog writing prompt. Maybe kids in my school will one day deviate from MySpace and spend more time with each other on the homework writing prompt. One requirement is that web lingo can’t be used like “lol” or “btw.”
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Rodney,
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like your students would gain so much from posting prompts for writing on weblogs. My questions are how long do you think it would take for your students to set up a weblog, and do you feel that it would be worth trying? I know that I would love to try ideas like yours, but I feel as though I have so much to cover in my curriculum that I wouldn't have the time to do this with my students.
Yes, I know what you are talking about. We are working on projects and getting ready for State testing. I found out a new problem today. My school district blocks all blog sites. Therefore, I can't help or show my students how to sign up for a blog. They have to follow written directions. If you ever had special ed kids, you know how difficult that will be.
ReplyDeleteThat was actually another question that I had for you, because I too teach special ed students in my school, and I'm not sure how easy it would be or how successful they would be trying to blog.
ReplyDeleteRodney, I think you have a great idea for implementing blogs in your classroom. Having students respond to a writing prompt as a homework assignment is much more interesting and engaging for them than writing their response in a journal. Students will enjoy reading the responses of their peers and commenting on other's posts. It will no doubt increase student motivation in writing and student interaction.
ReplyDeleteIt's unfortunate that your district blocks all blogging websites. Is this common practice for most districts? It would be a shame for the students not to be able to engage in this effective learning tool because of the restrictions. I wish it did not have to be an "all or nothing" policy.
It sounds like your biggest challenge will be teaching your students how to effectively and responsibly use blogs, without being able to *show* them by experimenting with a blog together. Maybe you could print out a few screen frames of a sample blog and copy it onto transparencies, so at least they could see what a blog looks like and how and where there are to submit their posts.
Good luck!
I really like your idea of posting writing prompts for homework and grading on participation. Since your students are MySpace users, I think they would pick up on blogging very easily.
ReplyDeleteWhat grade do you teach? If your district blocks blogging sites, does your tech policy say anything about open, electronic communication between students and teachers outside of school? I think the older the students, the more comfortable administration and parents would be.
Like you, I think using a blog is a great idea. My district also blocks a lot of blogging and social network sites which is the challenge you face. I have found that through our districts web page each teacher has a page available to post information. The problem is the time and steps posting takes and there is no comment feature. My district also provides email students to all students through Gaggle.net. Gaggle provides blogging space. I plan on looking into if that is a possibility. Does your school provide secure email for the students?
ReplyDeleteRodney, I think that blogging is an important skill for our students to learn and understand. I wonder if a little bit more structure and support around how to reply online would be beneficial can help to create responses that you desire rather than the LOL and OMG.
ReplyDeleteThanks Jen. Printing a few screen shots onto transparencies may work.
ReplyDeleteChristina, I teach 8th grade math, science and social studies to self contained special educational students with mild learning disabilities. Every teacher has a school email that parents and students can use if they have any questions.
Anna, our district set up secured email for the students, but the students don’t know that they have email through the district. Not sure what they are thinking about doing with these email accounts.
Chris, I agree that structure and rules must be enforced if blogging among is to occur.