When I first began thinking about blogs in the classroom I wasn't sure that I could apply it to many areas outside of work like journaling such as is done in writing or reading workshop. When I began exploring sites online to help me generate ideas I could see that a blog isn't just an online notebook that people could comment on. That is an important function of blogs, but in the beginning this was all I could think of as an application to the classroom. After reading through some of the 50 best blogs, I realized that blogs are now a multimedia form of communication. (Perhaps they always were and I was just clueless!). All this said, there are many applications in the area of writing throughout the content
Community Based Unit Project
Completing a unit project in social studies or civics could be supported with essays about a particular point of view, for example, that there is a schism in a city across classes that is more along lines of educational achievement than income. The student could embed graphs, audios and or videos of interviews with individuals who play important roles in the topic. Having the opportunity for community comments would be an interesting challenge for the student writers to make decisions on how to sort comments, who will be invited to make comments in order to add differing perspectives that give stronger feedback and provide a deeper understanding of the topic as it relates to the challenge of real world.
Oral Reading Practice
Another use for blogs in the classroom is for younger readers who are struggling with fluency, with a lack of confidence in their own reading skills, can read books, poems, stories aloud fluently (after repeated practice) that can be enjoyed by their assigned buddy in a
younger class, or parents, grandparents!
Online Book Club
A blog could also be a terrific way to hold a book club for students in which they could practice using the reading comprehension strategies of questioning, monitoring etc. With the support of a small group of partners who are working together to read deeply a shared novel.
So many ideas out there! Now if the firewalls come down - we are in business!
You do have many ideas for blogs, that's great. I thought the one about a book club was very good. this way there needs to be no meeting that would take precious time away for the busy lives of students, but they can still be apart of the club and encouraged to read.
ReplyDeleteI like your idea of including multimedia such as images and video into the blog to make it more than just a written journaling tool.
ReplyDeleteBlogs are a great idea to write across the subject areas! Great idea about a book club blog.
ReplyDeleteBlogs can be read by parents & others-as you mentioned. Technology is an amazing tool that can be incorporated in our classes today!
I am fortunate enough in my district that a lot of the firewall issues aren't there-as long as it is for educational reasons.
Book studies would fit perfectly into the functionality of a blog. I think it would easily allow students to think about, respond to, and then reflect on discussion questions as well as other student’s thoughts. I could also the blog used as a starting point for some collaborative student work on either a specific character study or maybe a specific literary term. Great thoughts, thank you!
ReplyDeleteI really like the online book club idea!! My students would really like that! I think you could get other teachers/administrators/staff to participate as well.
ReplyDeleteGreat ideas Lora Lee! The book club idea would be great for students. I think many students would really respond well to that activity and even to use it for any type of reading assignment. Instead of just assigning a reading, and discussing it the next day in class...why not just assign it for homework to read and discuss online in a blog. Could be in small groups or with the whole class. This could provide more time for teaching in the classroom and teachers can monitor students' discussions and comprehension of the reading material. It would be easy for the teacher to see which students participated in the discussion. Great ideas!
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of an online book club. Students who might not feel comfortable sharing out loud in a group would be able to share their thoughts in a blog. Blogs are becoming so popular and many people are writing them, contributing to them, or following them it seems natural that they would be implemented into school as well.
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