Now that you understand what a blog is, you may still not be sure what exactly that means for you. Depending on whether you are an enrolling teacher, a teacher-librarian, an administrator, there may be different reasons you wish to start blogging.
Will Richardson authored a wonderful book entitled, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms, which I would highly recommend to any educator. It is an easy read, not too technical, and explains some fabulous web tools in a “user-friendly” manner. If you are wanting to start incorporating instructional technology into the teaching and learning that goes on in your classroom or school, this would be a great place to start your own self-directed professional development.
In his book, Will gives a fantastic list of ways that you can incorporate blogs into educational settings – some of which you may not have considered. Here is a list of some of his ideas to get you thinking about what you might like to start blogging about:
You might like to create a reflective, journal-type blog to…
reflect on your teaching experiences.
Keep a log of teacher-training experiences.
Write a description of a specific teaching unit.
Describe what worked for you in the classroom or what didn’t work.
Provide some teaching tips for other teachers.
Write about something you learned from another teacher.
Explain teaching insights you gain from what happens in your classes.
Share ideas for teaching activities or language games to use in the classroom.
Provide some how-to’s on using specific technology in the class, describing how you used this technology in your own class.
Explore important teaching and learning issues.
You might like to start a class blog to…
post class-related information such as calendars, events, homework assignments and other pertinent class information.
Post assignments based on literature readings and have students respond on their own Weblogs, creating a kind of portfolio of their work.
Communicate with parents if you are teaching elementary school students,
post prompts for writing,
provide examples of classwork, vocabulary activities, or grammar games.
Provide online readings for your students to read and react to.
Gather and organize Internet resources for a specific course, providing links to appropriate sites and annotating the links as to what is relevant about them.
Post photos and comment on class activities.
Invite student comments or postings on issues in order to give them a writing voice.
Publish examples of good student writing done in class.
Showcase student art, poetry, and creative stories.
Create a dynamic teaching site, posting not only class-related information, but also activities, discussion topics, links to additional information about topics they are studying in class, and readings to inspire learning.
Create a literature circle (where groups of students read and discuss the same book).
Create an online book club.
Make use of the commenting feature to have students publish messages on topics being used to develop language skills.
Ask students to create their own individual course blogs, where they can post their own ideas, reactions, and written work.
Post tasks to carry out project-based learning tasks with students
build a class newsletter, using student-written articles and photos they take.
Link your class with another class somewhere else in the world.
Of course, this is just the beginning. If you have any other ideas of how you might use blogs in schools, I’d love to hear about them. Please respond to this post and share your ideas!
I guess the biggest challenge in starting a blog is that you have to make time to keep posting to it. Finding that time is not easy. In fact, sometimes it’s downright impossible. That being said, I read a really fantastic post by Steve Hargadon this morning about why Web 2.0 is the future of education. I was inspired (and if you read his posting I hope that you are too – even if you’re not not a “techie person” and feel like he’s speaking another language). So here I am… posting to my blog, eager and enthusiastic to help with the Web 2.0 learning process.
Many of the people reading this blog are probably here at my invitation. I truly appreciate you humoring me by clicking on the link to get here. Now that you’re here, I’m hoping that you will stay awhile (and come back often) to learn with me. I’m guessing that a few of you probably aren’t even really sure what the heck a blog is, despite the fact you’re here reading one. As a result, I thought that talking about blogs might be a really good place to start our virtual exploration of Web 2.0 tools.
Wikipedia offers a pretty comprehensive definition of blogs, if you care to read it. If you’re like me, you might want to keep it a bit more simplistic. Basically it goes like this: The creator of the blog writes an entry or post to discuss their thoughts, feelings, etc. This post is published on the Internet using an easy-to-use, web-based program (often free of charge). Other people read the post. Sometimes people respond to the post by clicking on the “Comment” or “Reply” link at the bottom of the post. The author of the original post can respond to the replies. And so it continues… I really like the way Jeremiah Owyang describes the blogger as being the “keynote speaker” of the blog. It’s a simple definition that makes a lot of sense and might help you understand the differences between blogs and some of the other tools out there.
Probably one of the very best, easy-to-understand descriptions (and under three minutes long, nonetheless!) is the one put together by the CommonCraft Show. They truly do explain things “in plain English” for everyone to understand. Please click on the video link below to watch and learn. Come back soon for a discussion about how we might use blogs in our classrooms and libraries!
Welcome to my first post on this all-new blog. I’m excited that you’re here reading this and hope you’ll check back often.
I am an elementary school Teacher-Librarian who has developed a fascination (and perhaps a slight addiction) to Web 2.0 tools over the course of my wonderful Masters degree program through the University of Alberta. Web 2.0 tools are a terrific way of infusing technology into our teaching practice in a practical, engaging way that can help motivate students to learn. My final capping project for my degree will focus on how the use of these tools can hook reluctant-reader male students into participating in literacy activities. I truly believe they can. That being said, however, I see the benefits of integrating them into lessons with ALL of our students, in every subject area across the curriculum.
We need to consider that most of our current elementary students have been using computers for most of their lives – for some since they were still in diapers. They use technology as part of their everyday life for entertainment, information and communication. Media/technology guru Doug Johnson says it well when describing his own son: “The computer to him is about as remarkable as indoor plumbing is to me. He is constantly “connected” via iPod, cell phone, keyboard, digital videocamera, or game controller”. As educators, we need to recognize that students want – probably even need – to be using these tools as part of their learning at school. They need to be integrated into the curriculum in a meaningful way – not just using technology for the sake of using technology, but as powerful tools which can transform learning, driven by good pedagogy. If you don’t want to take my word for it, please watch this fabulous podcast/presentation by Doug Johnson from the 2007 NECC conference in Atlanta, Georgia. It is wonderful and speaks volumes!
My hope is to use this blog to introduce interested readers to some of the fabulous Web 2.0 tools which I have come across, and tell you about some of the ways in which I envision them being used effectively in classrooms. I encourage you to try them with your students, and reply to me through this blog to let me know how they worked. Share your lesson ideas, successes, frustrations, and excitement! We’re all life-long learners here!
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