Last year I taught 7th Grade Career Discovery in the Corinth School District in Mississippi. Integrating technology was a must, considering how much technology is used in the workplace. One of the biggest complaints of local businesses in our area is that students entering the workforce are not properly equipped to use the technology available to them in the workplace. A technology tool that was very beneficial to me, my students, and our learning community was the use of blogs.
One way that I used blogs in the classroom last year was as a student portfolio. Upon completing a project students would post what they learned, any insights or interesting findings from their project, and what they liked most about the project. The students would attach or insert their technology projects into their blogs. This enabled students to share their projects with others (parents, grandparents, and peers).
Students became more conscientious about the quality of their work, knowing that it would be posted on the Internet and also knowing that their peers would be "checking out their work". This was also a great way to encourage writing and reflection for each student. Students began blogging about issues outside of the classroom, happenings in our school, community, and/or casual journalism. I was very impressed at the level of writing the students grew into. They felt empowered to be creative and express themselves in a way they typically would not in a typical classroom setting.
One thing that I would love to incorporate is the ability to have RSS capability. Our district was apprehensive about allowing feedback to students work. This would encourage student and parent interaction with the classroom community.
Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms (Third Edition ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Emily,
ReplyDeleteI have never implemented the blog in my classroom with student interaction. I like your idea of using the blog as a portfolio for the student's peers and guardians to see. If the district is apprehensive of allowing feedback, did you not allow the peers and guardians to comment on the student's work?
One challenge that I think about when incorporating blogs into my classroom are the parents that, like your district, are also hesitant. What do you do when one student is not able to participate because his or her guardian does not approve of this teaching method? When I think of this challenge, my only solution is allowing the student to make comments on other students blogs, so that he or she could still participate to some extent. This particular student might need to maintain a paper portfolio in place of the blog. You could request that other students still comment on his or her work using sticky notes so that they are not permanent. The student is still receiving feedback on his or her work, still participating on the blog, and not displaying original work per the guardians request.
Keri,
ReplyDeleteParents loved the blogs and the ability to see what the students were doing in the technology classroom. I had lots of great feedback from the students and parents about the activities the students completed. It also allowed our community to view the students work.
We did have one student that was unable to do the activities because her parent did not allow her to publish anything to the Internet. She kept a paper portfolio of all the activities completed. She was unable to respond to the students work electronically, but she did so on paper. I like the idea of the sticky notes. This is something that would be beneficial for her by having the input from the other students and not just the teacher. Thanks for the advice.
Ohhh, I love how the bue words on your blog link to other sites!
ReplyDeleteYour idea to use a blog for peer assessment is creative! Do your students self reflect on their work on the blog too?
I have never implemented a blog in my curriculum but I have seen using them as a portfolio throughout my career as a student. I think it is a great way for students to show their work at home. They can share with their parents what they are doing without the risk of them losing all the paper work before it makes it back to school.
ReplyDeleteThe issue that I see with this is will the parents be okay with having their students work out on the internet? How would you work around this issue? The only way that I can think that this would work would be by making it an invitation only website. This means that you send out an invite to the people that you would like to be able to view the contents. These are just some ideas. Please feel free to let me know what you think and how you would work this issue. Thanks.
I think using RSS as teachers can have a huge impart on our communication with parents. The other day a fellow teacher was telling me about how a parent was complaining about having to go to a bunch of different teacher websites to see what her child was doing in school. The parent needs to learn about RSS so instead of going to get the material the material comes to her (Richardson, 2009, pg 71). As I am learning more about the potential for technology in our classrooms it seems like we as teachers will need to teach our students and their parents how to get the full benefit of what technology has to offer.
ReplyDeleteRichardson, Will. 2009. Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. California: Corwin Press.