Blog Uses

Last week I mentioned how I tried to start a blog last year. Every year at my school teachers are asked to focus on at least one technology goal. I created a blog with the thought that I could post a lot of information on it for students and parents. No one followed and I abandoned the site by the end of October.

I realize now where I went wrong.

Blogs aren't effective if they're being used in a way that transmits information in just one direction. That's where I failed. I thought a blog would be a good tool for me to get information to others. I didn't think about how the blog could be used to get information TO me FROM students and parents.

Re-thinking blogs over the past couple of weeks has given me some new ideas for how to use this tool in the classroom.

For my American history classroom, I can see blogs as a real asset in a couple of different ways. I start a lot of my classes with little thinking/writing prompts and sometimes end with a writing prompt for an exit ticket. Some of my kids have a difficult time completing this task in class. A blog would be a good place for me to post a discussion question or "critical thinking" question. Kids could have a set amount of time (maybe overnight, maybe a week) to respond to a comment and to others' comments. In this setting, the blog could possibly work the way discussion forums work.

I could also see the blog being an effective place to share news stories. Each week my students are encouraged to follow the latest news, to find a piece of positive news, and to find a piece of "weird" news. I ask for volunteers to share this information in class. With the blog, students could post the links directly.

I would like to use the blog for my English classes, as well. I can see the blog being a place to review books and share ideas about books. It would also be a place where I could elaborate on assignments and kids could bounce ideas off of each other.

Blogs to Follow

I've picked three blogs to start following.

The first blog is Edublogger. It can be found at: http://theedublogger.com/. This blog looks really interesting to me because it seems to touch on one of my expectations of this class. The blog seems to offer ways to set up and manage blogs for students to use.

I'm also going to look at a blog devoted to reviewing adolescent literature. One of the courses I teach is eighth-grade English. I'm constantly trying to stay a bit ahead of the kids in what's going to be the "next big thing." This site looks as though it will help! http://adlitreviews.blogspot.com/2007_04_01_archive.html

Another course that I teach is American history to tenth-grade students. I found a blog that's written by an American history teacher. He offers up a lot of useful "tricks of the trade." What drew me in to this blog was how creative some of his ideas were. For example, he shows Civil War battle highlights in just a few slides; he also identified a website where kids can make digital cartoons to help them remember key facts. http://ushistoryeducatorblog.blogspot.com/

Great Expectations

Before taking this class's introductory survey, I would have labeled myself as someone who was pretty computer savvy. At the school where I work I'm the go-to person for help with most of the computer issues that our teachers have. However, I now realize that there are A LOT of tech tools available to me that I'm not only not using, but that I also don't know anything about.

First and foremost, I'd like to learn what all of the different tools do. Secondly, I'd like to consider real applications for a lot of these tools.

I'd like to work on using a blog effectively. A couple years ago I set up a blog where I planned on posting homework assignments and hints, book reviews, helpful links to projects, and news for parents. I stopped working on that blog when, after a full month, no one had viewed it. (I sent the address out to parents in my "Welcome Back" letter at the beginning of the year.)

I also want to learn how to set up some sort of discussion forum (maybe it would just be a modified blog...) for students. I think that a lot of students who are shy in class would feel empowered to voice their ideas if they could do so online.