Blogging is a new step for me. Or should I say I'm a novice to having my own blog. Yes, I have plenty of friends who have their own blog and I relish in reading their updates and scrolling through their pictures. It's a way for us to stay connected, despite being hundreds of miles apart. But, what will happen as blogging expands, leaves family rooms across the country and enters the classroom? Will it change the traditional classroom? How can you help but say...yes!
When we incorporate blogging into our classroom, we are embracing the technology that exists for our students. We are equipping them with a "new set of skills and attitudes." But it's more than just using technology.
Blogging gives students and teachers alike a voice. Teachers can use blogs as a way to communicate with students and parents. They can keep them updated on things the children are learning, homework assignments, important dates and even incorporate photos or videos of happenings in the classroom (with prior parent permission, of course).
However, more importantly is the voice blogging gives to students. We are constantly reminding students they are writing for an audience, but who is that audience? Blogging opens up our audience to a whole new world; writing is no longer just for the teacher. Additionally, when students know they are writing for an audience, one that will be published for the world to see, they are often more in tune to their writing quality. They will open up and be honest, admit their fears, share their dreams.
Blogging allows us to communicate and interact with people from around the globe, "not just people in our immediate environment." People can respond to blogs with comments and questions. Connections will form as comments are made. Classrooms can pair up and have blogging buddies.
Blogging will, without a doubt, change the world in your classroom and the way you teach! Are you ready?
Mackenzie, this is also my first blogging opportunity as well. I am really enjoying it, now that I actually have the time and purpose for it!
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with your comments concerning students expressing their own voice. This is an open area, where they can freely write, and finally have someone besides the teacher to read about their lives, opinions and perspectives! And the best part of all, is that in most cases, a blog can be written in any form-poem, response, short story-anything they would like.
Your idea about blogging buddies is interesting-students can comment back and forth to their buddy-or possibly even blogging pen pals. Students could possibly be assigned to educational bloggers in similar grades from all over the world and have academic discussions, learn about other cultures.
Hi Mackenzie,
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely. My favorite line in your post is, "...more importantly is the voice blogging gives to students. We are constantly reminding students they are writing for an audience, but who is that audience?" Nothing is more powerful to a young writer than to understand that her words are being read beyond the teacher's desk.
Mackenzie:
ReplyDeleteHow can blogging not change the traditional classroom?!?! “A blog…is and has always been more than the online equivalent of a personal journal” (Downes, 2004). Students, through the experience of blogging will definitely become emerging learners through the use of technology. I completely agree with your thoughts on blogging giving students and teachers alike a voice. For example, “…you use your blog to link to your friends and rivals and comment on what they’re doing” (Downes, 2004). Students and teachers will be able to communicate in non-traditional, newly arising educational ways, setting new standards for both teaching and learning. It becomes an online community that fosters learning in an entirely new light. Just like our class this semester, blogging is beginning to keep us up-to-date on assignments, thoughts, questions, and even general wonderings.
You make a great point about blogging and its audience. I agree that students are more in tune to their writing when it is exposed to the online world. Personally, while using blackboard in my undergraduate education courses, I was extremely astute about grammar, spelling, etc., because my audience was much larger than just a professor. Downes’ article specifically discusses a girl named Rosalie, a student at St-Joseph, as being more in tune to her writing while blogging. She describes her growing awareness and attention to her own writing because ‘anybody can read her posts.’
Also in regard to your comment about an audience, I do wonder though, if not just directed for a teacher, will students be honest, admitting to fears and opening up about future endeavors? Or shy away from these feelings because of what blogs expose?
And to answer the infamous question…Am I ready? Do I have a choice?
Hi Jamie - You pose an interesting point concerning private versus public. I do not believe that blogging is a substitute for a personal journal, although some use it as such. Instead - I like the direct connection between a blog and the the audience. If you consider the three main genres of the CCSS (expository, persuasive, and narrative)the potential of blogs to support the curriculum is substantial...
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