Please choose two of the three choices from below
1. Middlebury College professor Barbara Ganley asks,How can a teacher expect her students to blog if she doesn't do it herself? Guiding students by demonstrating appropriate ways of blogging offers one of the best ways of introducing students to a safer and more rewarding internet experience. Finding good examples to work off of is more difficult for us non-natives. Chapter three offers a number of sites to visit for interesting educational blogs. Visit one of those sites and write a response about what you found that would be relevant to any classroom. (List of sites on page 58)
2. Blogging with students and parents (or some form of interaction) will be part of our everyday lives as teachers sometime in the near future. From what you've read so far, how is this going to impact your classroom, your prep time, and your time at home? How could this be a better time management tool you?
3. Getting everyone involved in blogging seems pretty daunting, perhaps using a computer lab time to investigate how that might go would be an interesting activity. A class could go through the blogging process with you and once the blog site was established you could ask one thought provoking question per cycle and have each child respond. This is easier with 3rd and up but might be the start of an upward spiral for future years. Perhaps in the lower grades you could invite two or three students to respond, with the help of a teacher if necessary. This might be a good extension activity for some students (and parents if you invited them to participate). Seeing their names by their responses might be a good incentive to participate again.
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#2. I just got through blogging 3 paragraphs and it disappeared!!!
So I guess I will do it over...
I think that blogging with parents would definitely save a lot of time on the phone or face to face. Parents will be able to get all the information they need about up-coming assignments etc. through your web page or blog.
Blogging will save planning new lessons and checking papers because students will be able to blog their answers and teachers will be able to see students work to plan and connect.
3. I will come back later...
3. I think grades k-2 have a long way to go before we begin the bogging. It would be a neat activity to do with parent help though. If we had a parent for each student in all grades it would make teaching it initially easier, then gradually the kids could do it on their own.
1. I visited two sites on the list. The first site was mainly YouTube videos--and some kind of difficulty with the RSS feed. The next was more interesting. There were blogs about digital natives vs. immigrants- in which they made a comparison to new teachers vs. long-time teachers...I thought it was interesting, but didn't want to spare the time to read on.
2. Parents don't blog-- or haven't yet. I have had a blog on my teacher website since September...not one hit.
1& 2 I visited a couple of sites. Some of the sites I could not get into at this time. I found some interesting articles on touch screen tables. I also found that one site it seemed to be a blog of complaints or criticisms. I guess blogging is one way to get your frustrations out in theopen if you have some. I would think you would haveto be carefully in what you put in print. I agree with Jessica in that parents don't blog yet. Finding time to do this or respond to something a teacher has written to them is not always possible. I personally find this takes alot of extra time. I don't always have the time to do this during school hours and I hate to take my time at home away. It would have to be set up very simply to work with students, parents, or myself.
Maria-sorry about disappearing text. I’ve had that problem also. Now I do everything in Word first and then transfer it. One more hassle though.
I agree it might be simpler to have an on-going blog or web page to communicate with parents and or students. As long as it is easy to operate.
I hadn’t thought about giving a test and having them blog their answers. Fifth graders could do that. Sandy has been helping me figure out how to get everyone in my classroom so they can blog in the LMC computer lab. But you’re right it would be crazy to do that in the lowers without some “consistent” help.
Jessica-have you ever used YouTube for vocabulary enhancement? Some of the short clips might be very good for visual learners that need help with basic concepts.
Maybe you could offer a bribe to the first student whose parent blogs back.
I know there are some great sites out there. Sandy has shared some that are very relevant to my age group. I could spend hours looking and testing them but there just isn’t the time I would like to do so.
Sandy-I saw the one about the touch screen tables. That would be great to have one in the LMC. The kids could lay a book down on the screen that they’re interested in on it and it would give them a quick video or audio review of the book. There are so many great ways those tables could be used to extend the learning and interest of the students.
Jim Sogard has made it clear that we need to be careful what we put into print. But that caution is for all lines of work.
I really appreciate all the on-line research you do and share with others. It has been great to have a source to go to when technology doesn’t work the way I would like it to.
Do you know of any sites that would be examples of a simple format to interact with students and or parents? There must be others who have the same concerns as our blogging group.
Jack- I wish I had the time to spend using YouTube for vocabulary enhancement. I could do it with students individually, and I would even enjoy that-- but there seems to be way too much naughty info/pics to do in our lab as a class. I don't have a way to do it as a whole group, yet. I can see some parents wanting to earn rewards by blogging, I just don't want to offer them.
I also went to the You-Tube website. I had had kids want to show me examples of things from You-Tube, but usually they amount to someone doing something really stupid or violent. I guess unless there is a way to narrow things down like a specific educational You-Tube space…I’m not going to spend the time unless someone recommends a specific video clip to watch.
However, I’ve been thinking that I could use this in my guided reading groups and as one of my centers. I actually think I could show the kids our site as an example (so be careful with your comments! (just kidding) - !!!
Okay...yikes I'm a little behind on the blogging, but I'm getting back with the program now.
#3 - Right now I send out an email to my parents every and get pretty good responses - some daily, some weekly. I guess right now a blog seems like extra work. The same parents who don't have email, wouldn't have access to a blog and people usually check email everyday. I don't want the blog to turn into a way for parents to complain. I guess I worry about that.
1. I found similar sites with You-Tube related info. But on www.theshiftedlibrarian.com/, there was some VERY relevant info for us. Here's a quote: "So I call myself "The Shifted Librarian," but what does that mean? I took the name from a presentation that I do called "Information Shifting" about how the change from pursuing information to receiving information is and will be affecting libraries."
That is what we are trying to do~ stay on top of the information/teaching & learning for our students through this blogging class.
Sandra~ one quote from that site was "Why every person should bow down and worship their librarian." I thought you would like that one :)
3. Could blogging be an extension activity for the upper REACH students? Monitoring is still a concern though.
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About losing information after it's typed in the comment box, I highlight my text and do a control (Ctrl)/copy(c). That way I can type (ctrl) (v), paste if I lose my text.
testing rss with Nicky
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