This is new to me. I teach Technology in a Wood Shop to 6th, 7th, & 8th grades in a middle school. My first thoughts are to set this up for the eighth grade and see how things develop. I feel that once I learn all the details of blogging this will enhance student learning. I asked my students today if any of them were bloggers and the reply was two out of forty-eight eighth graders blog. We do not use Facebook in our school for any communications, however, years ago students started a negative page and there was serious bad comments posted recently. This leads me to concerns about moderating the blog. What are your thoughts on this? Also, should I create a new, separate blog dedicated to just the eighth grade?
Here are my thoughts as to what will be posted on the blog for this class.
· The information that is on my school web page
· All rubrics and other information pertaining to assignments
· Due dates for assignments
· Relevant class links
· A section where students can share research information pertaining to the projects
· Pictures and videos pertaining to class work
· Student work
All of my lessons and information for the classes is saved digitally. This would make it easy to post on the blog. Instead of explaining something over and over I have students access the information on the blog with the laptops in class. This will benefit the entire class. The blog would also be a benefit when students are absent. I am sure there are many more benefits. What are your thoughts?
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ReplyDeleteI am starting to use my blog as evidence for my administrator supervisor in our yearly professional goals. My goal was to reflect more as a teacher. This is easier to prove with a web address. Also, I want the world to know what it is like to be a teacher when you are the provider for a family. I want the public to know what we deal with on a daily basis.
ReplyDeleteAs for your classroom, I think it is an excellent resource for displaying student work. As a parent, I would want to be able to see what my kid did in your class. I think blogs have gotten better at allowing blog admins to police the posts. Case in point: it looks like you've already removed a comment.
According to the stuff we've read this class, wikis are the most effective teaching tool, so I think establishing a class wiki would be very cool. In fact, I just had an epiphany (for me ... sorry!). I could make a stylebook for our writers and staff manual a class wiki where editors could update entries constantly.
Anyway, I think blogs are great for student expression and, with the proper administration, could save a rainforest! Haha!
One more thing. A challenge you might have is posting pics if your budget doesn't include a digital camera. I think this is where existing tech can help you out. Odds are, your kids already have cell phones. What would it hurt if you had a kid take pics with his/her iPhone and e-mailed them to you?
DeleteAnother blog idea I had was a how-to page built by your students explaining how to make something. This would cement their learning and you utilize cross-curricular learning! Win, win!
When we return to school Tues. I plan on asking the students to view my blog. Here is what I plan on posting. What do you think?
DeleteLet’s see who was listening to me when I asked to view my blog. If you would like five extra credit points on your project grade, post on this blog how you plan on reducing surface and fluid friction on your Mouse Trap Car by this Friday. In your post you must include the vocabulary words posted on the white board to receive the five points.
Joe
I think your ideas for your blog are a great start. I do understand your concerns about monitoring the students and making sure to maintain a positive environment for your students. My school has also had issues of negative information being posted online by students, and just a few days ago, we were looking into some cyber-bullying that had occurred. While it is challenging, I think the positives trump the negatives. My corporation has a web-site called ANGEL (which I believe is developed by the same people that created Blackboard) which has many options including allowing us to create blogs and wikis that are only available to our school network (and within it, only those given permission by the class administrator). I do not know what all is available out there, but I do know there are options that could provide you with some security options and the rest would simply be left to your classroom management and explaining to your students how to properly use the tools you are providing and any consequences they may face if they abuse the system.
ReplyDeleteI think Ryan's post was also very important. From what I am learning about Wikis, using them for your specific classroom seems like a terrific idea. Not only can your students collaborate to create manuals for the various projects, but you are also doing your language arts colleagues a huge favor as technical writing is part of middle school LA indicators.
I spoke with my two of my friends who have quite a lot of experience with this kind of technology and just happen to have taught the same subject as you. Hopefully they will be able to give me some more ideas for you. I think you are doing great so far.
- Adam Cooper
I too believe that a blog is one platform for setting up a classroom page. One advantage over a standard website is that the maintenance in minimal compared to a traditional site. By this I mean that you can set up all of your pertinent and permanent information is side columns that never have to be touched again. Examples would be info about you, syllabus, bell schedules, links to the school website, etc. You can then use the simple posing feature to quickly update the blog with current info like assignments, tests, student work etc. One great feature of a blog is the archiving, so a student could look back to the month they missed. As someone who has designed websites I can tell you this is much easier than having to redesign a homepage every time (although many websites can now incorporate a blog-type feature by incorporating programs like Wordpress). I do feel that it is a little tricky to attach documents, pics, and videos. However, they same to be improving this daily.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of security, I would look into closed systems where you have a large roll in monitoring information. If you decide to use online resources like blogs you also must become adamant about policing the sites yourself. This way you can catch rude and inappropriate comments before a parent phone call.
Once I get a handle on blogging I plan on starting a new blog or wiki for my classes. I will have to monitor the blog and will probably have students be a member of the blog in order to comment.
DeleteJoe
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ReplyDelete