Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Ideas for Blogging in Classroom
I would like to start using the blog for students to post answers to discussions topics. My 5th graders have many literature circles throughout the school year. I would like to post different questions about parts they have read to increase critical thinking. After a little practice, I could have the students come up with the ideas they can chat about over the blog. I use a “chat sheet” now where they students write down three ideas they want to chat about. This could easily be done on a blog. The blog would be helpful because everyone is participating and I can read what they students have to say even if I am not with there group. Another idea is to use it at the beginning of a unit to get students to start thinking about the topic, like a KWL chart. Students could share what they already know about the topic. One of my favorite parts about the blog is that it gets all of the students involved. The students are reading more ideas than what might be shared out loud in class. It is also a great tool for integrating reading and writing. I teach math, reading, writing, spelling, and science, and the blog could easily be used in any of those subjects.
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I think that is a great idea to use the blog as a way of seeing how students react to a piece of literature. I believe that reading good literature is starting to fade in our youth, and using a blog to have students criticaly think about what they read is a great thing. I think that would engage many students to see their ideas posted on a website and talked about by others. The only downside I see is that not every student may have interent acess so the assignment time frame may have to be longer than usual, and we as teachers would have to monater what is being said so that nobody is hurting anyone with their comments.
ReplyDeleteI love your idea of using your blog for book discussions. I have been doing this for a couple of months and it has worked quite well. We don't use my blogspot page, but a thinkquest.com site that each student has. It allows me to create different scenarios like: debating, chatting, voting and brainstorming ideas. I love the voting feature because you can't register a vote without backing up your answer with writing that everyone can see.
ReplyDeleteI post a discussion question topic that students in the book club have to answer in the morning before we meet as a group. This has really improved our discussions. The students are now starting to discuss the book on their own in the evening through the pages that I create. If a student is absent they almost always post to the discussion some time before we meet so we utilize their input and message them back our thoughts. When we meet for our book clubs now, everyone has their laptop and reading and discussing blog responses is the first thing we do. It has really saved a lot of in class time and increased the quality of our discussions.
Our school does have four laptop carts. The upside to laptop carts is that each student can be on a computer right in the classroom. The downside is the time it takes to turn on, and they do not work 100% of the time. Concerning Mr. Severino’s comment, I know a few students do not have Internet access all the time. I could require them to make a certain amount of posts on their own time throughout the whole book. I would also have to make sure they are able to use the computers at school.
ReplyDeleteI will have to look at thinkquest.com. I have used 21classes.com in the beginning of this school year, which worked okay. Have you ever heard to gaggle.net? This site seems to have everything all together and easy to use. I was thinking about using this program. In addition, when you start in the beginning of the year, what are some important things to teach or model to get the students going? As I said before, I have tried discussion boards with my students, but I do not think I took enough time to introduce it.
I think blogging for your lit circles is wonderful, it is such a good way to get the students talking about what they read and getting them motivated to read. The one thing I have just thought of was what about the students who want to post stuff on the blog that is hurtful to other students or wrong. I know in my school the students love to destroy school equipment and I could really see them doing stuff to the blog to mess it up.
ReplyDeleteTeachtech,
ReplyDeleteI used gaggle last year. It was fun that each student could have their own e-mail. I am using think.com because it has the ability to develop projects and it is a little more student friendly. I have not tried 21classes.
In the beginning we talked about the opportunities and the responsibilities that come with blogging. I also like to post a lot of sample entries. The students know that if they do not take the time to make a quality response, they will take the time to make another one. That has increased the quality of responses. Think.com is a private account that our school has, so it is not available for public use. The parents liked that aspect. I like the idea that I have to invite students to participate in different projects. It makes group projects feel more important when you are one of like four students who is able to participate.
The biggest problem that I have had with our mobile lab is students changing setting on the computer. The technology administrator does not like that and the student usually gets suspended from using the computer for at least the remainder of the week. We take our laptops to specialists (library, art, music, science, and engineering). Not being able to use the laptop for online projects gets old real old for the students. I worry with what will happen when they go to middle school next year and go back to traditional text books in most courses.
Our current media specialist is also very particular regarding how the computers in our computer lab are used and for what purpose. Our time is also very limited. In order to incorporate these great learning experiences, there are going to be many challenges. A challenge may be technological tools themselves or even the people we need to support us. There are always ways to work around challenges and as more and more people become aware of the importance of these aspect of learning for 21st century students, it will get easier for educators.
ReplyDelete