In today's digital world, blogging, no doubt, has a huge impact in what students can achieve within the classroom. Students are able to explore their interests, communicate their personal views and ideas through communication with others outside of the classroom, explores different cultures throughout the world, and heightens their awareness of issues around them. In essence, blogging and technology within the classroom, engages students and ultimately keeps them connected to the outside communities of the world. Students who build their technology skills will surely enter the world of critical thinking, problem solving, communication and collaboration, and fine tune their research abilities. This aids students in pushing their depths of knowledge to higher levels, as well as encourages students to show their creativity. This also aligns with the Common Core initiative and the National Education Technology Standards for Students (NETS).
Two teachers Johanna Cleary and Mr Seyfert use Kidblog to integrate technology into their classrooms. Cleary uses this for "Book Clubs" and "Conversation Blogs" revolving around a weekly topic. Seyfert uses it for student "Book Reviews & Recommendations" I thought these were fabulous ideas. In addition, teacher Aviva Dusigers used Skype Literature Circles so students in her classroom can communicate with students from other parts of the country who are reading the same book. This is a great experience for students to hear alternate perspectives on literature for kids in different ares of the country. I love this idea because I had given up on lit circles as students often did not do their jobs. As kids are meeting with other kids through Skype, this may be an incentive to open lines of communication.
Another venue to motivate students was through a web site called new-casts. Here students created short clips on assorted topics. I thought this also could be used as a news broadcast on a school wide basis that could be shown weekly regarding events at school (Community), accomplishments of students (spotlight - bios), results of team games (Sports) or even an editorial. It also could be used as a student council initiative.
Overall - the possibilities here are endless and definitely worth exploring within the classroom. Although these may be difficult for the new comer of technology to initiate, once up and running, the benefits out weigh the risks.
I completely agree with you that the benefits out weigh the risks! I, however, have not yet built the confidence to begin to blog with my own class and I fear that by creating a class page I am adding a whole new piece of work for me to keep up with. I know that sounds selfish but, until I feel completely competent and am navigating my own blog (which admittedly I am loving) I am going to hold off on this in my class for now. As my skill set grows, I will no doubt move to blogging because it is not only essential to meeting priority standards, it is vital in this day and age that I update my own teaching. I must admit, I do love Animoto and I look forward to working in class with my students on creating their own science related Animotos!
ReplyDelete