Personally, I think blogging is a great way to gain more insight on student thinking. If used as an online journal, I think it could really help students express themselves. By doing so, teachers can further their understanding on each individual which will hopefully help them meet more students' individual needs. I also think it is a great way to assess the students because you can see how their ways of thinking have changed over the course of a unit and in general they can tell you what they learned in ways a test cannot.
As mentioned in some articles, it is a great way for students to collaborate as well. Just like we have been reading and commenting each other's blogs, the students can do the same. They can share and expand their ideas by communicating with one another via blogging. It is also a great way for students to brain storm ideas and not lose them! Keeping them online is awesome because they can access their information from anywhere with an Internet connection! This ties in with using blogs as an online portfolio....I think it is a great idea. Students can easily upload images or share documents and other types of projects online. This will allow students to share their work all over the world as well as have an easy time locating all their works.
However, I think the most important reason to use blogs in the classroom is to get students writing! I another class I just read an article on how writing positively influences reading. You can check out the article here:
http://carnegie.org/fileadmin/Media/Publications/WritingToRead_01.pdf
By doing so, I honestly feel that the students will become more engaged in their work and will grow a stronger connection to it as well. I am positive they will develop a greater understanding about whatever it is they are writing about :)
As far as managing the blogs goes, I think it is going to be pretty time consuming since there will be so many. However, I do believe it is manageable. You can read blogs on the go if you have a laptop and don't have to worry about losing them like you do with paper! Also, RSS subscriptions are the perfect solution to helping manage blogs because rather then checking each students' blog everyday, you can easily see who has updated or added to their blogs and who hasn't. This helps a lot as far as participation goes too. In a sense, it makes the teacher's job quite a bit simpler! :)
I'm wondering for the first time if one of the challenges to classroom blogs is the proliferation of social networks like Facebook? Based on what I see of my sons and their friends, classmates are already well connected into their SOCIAL NETWORKS. Hopefully, when offered with the opportunity to join a classrooom blog, they will see the importance of branching out from their Facebook comfort zones and into a realm that can facilitate their roles as students. I'm not that familiar with Facebook, but perhaps it can be linked with the classroom blog to make it easier for the students?
ReplyDeleteTori, have you read Jim Trelease's _The Read-Aloud Handbook_? It's a fabulous book on how important reading is for children, not just reading but being read to by adults.
ReplyDeleteProfessor B - thanks for the recommendation I am going to look into that!
ReplyDeleteMr. Wellen - You can create links to blogs on Facebook. I am not sure exactly how, but I have some friends that put their blog updates on their facebook pages. That is a good idea, because most kids are already connected to that social network.
ReplyDeleteIn the classroom there is not always enough time to complete everything you had in mind. Blogs came in handy as it creates communication outside the classroom. I see it as a way for students to create discussions and another way from them to express themselves.
ReplyDelete