Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Purpose for Blogs in the Classroom
I am currently a 6th and 7th grade Instructional Resource teacher who provides special education services in an inclusion setting (Language Arts and Math). I would incorporate a blog in my class as an electronic journal to determine the students' confidence in understanding the particular concept or skill that was taught for the day. Allowing students to use the blog as an assignment site or to retrieve information placed by the teacher would place students at an disadvantage due to not all students having a computer at their home (My school is 99.9% Title I school). The blog will enhance the lesson by allowing the students to express how they feel (nonverbal/noninteractive students) and be a part of the learning process. I will use their feedback to determine the presentation of skills and concepts to ensure that multiple teaching strategies are used to meet their needs. Lastly, showcasing of work would depend on that particular assignment (book report, art project, awards, etc.) and on approval from the student.
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Nikisha,
ReplyDeleteIt sounds as though you will be using a blog to differentiate lessons for the students, which is great. I was one of those students who did not like to volunteer my opinions or answer questions in class, but I would have shared my ideas through written work. Using a blog would give different students the opportunity to be heard.
Also, it is important to realize the limitation of student access to the Internet. Does your school have a computer lab where you could take the students? My school has limited computer lab opportunities, but we do have laptops that can be checked out from the library. Do you have that as a resource?
In doing a similar activity, I have found that you are right; you will get participation from students who were normally silent, non-participants in your class. Something I didn’t realize that would happen with this type of activity was how they interacted with each other. I learned a lot about the personality of each student by reading how they commented on each others' posts. You might find this too. There’s a lot of posturing type behavior when observing middle school students interact with each other in the real world, but their online behavior can be quite different; and quite genuine. I think you’ll be very happy with how this activity turns out with your students and will learn more than you thought you might have while doing this. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like a good idea for differenti-ation purposes, however, you may find that your blog has a number of grammatical, punctuation, run on sentences, sentence fragments, etc. I suggest that you have the students write their comments, approve them, and then let them post to the blog.
ReplyDeleteMrs. Williams,
ReplyDeleteAt my school, we have two computer labs (one specifically for special education students) and lastly IDEA provided an office equipped with the latest IBM flat screen computers (6 which are so nice) as well as 15 laptops for special education students. I presented my blog for my class from this stand point because I know my students do not have computers at home (teach at a low SES) school and the community does not allow the students to take advantage of exploring technology (many public libraries and community resources for children closed due to budgeting from the city). With these major contributions from the government and the school district, our student has every opportunity to be successful if they use the educational tools to their advantage.
Nikisha
Matt,
ReplyDeleteDo you have problems with inappropriate behavior being displayed on the blog or students making allegations about others sending negative emails? This is a huge step that I think my school should convert too which allow students to explore the many collaborative tools to express themselves but the district feels that students can not handle this responsibility (based on the various students facebook accounts). Did you school district go against this idea in the beginning and what made blogging an addition to your classroom (adminstration permission- what happened for you to get the green light)?
Nikisha
Kay,
ReplyDeleteGreat idea. With text messaging, students are writing lessons as though they are texting their friends. Our eight grade teacher is having a hard time trying to correct this behavior.
Nikisha
I really think that this strategy for differentiated instruction is going to be successful, and now that you mention the new resources you have I´m pretty sure those are going to be an extra motivation for your students. Wish that every school could have the possibility to provide the resources that students are lacking of. About behavior I think that having posts being previously approved is a good initial strategy. However, as time passes such approving process has to be attached to a formative process by which kids learn proper behaviors using blogs, and by the way improve their writing skills. As I see it, we are including blogs because we do believe that they are part of our student’s natural surroundings today. Becoming independent in the publishing process is the necessary ability that will allow them to use them effectively as communication and knowledge construction tools.
ReplyDeleteMy students did display some inappropriate behavior during this first week, but I don't think it's something that's going to be hard to correct. It is unfortunate that my district blocks so much of the web because I would have liked to have shown them a variety of discussion boards as an example. Perhaps I didn't emphasize enough that everything they write will be public; I will clarify this further this week. The discussion board and blogging we will be using will be done within Blackboard, an online platform like we use for Walden. This means that what they write about will only be public to their class. Don't be deterred by the fact that some students will be inappropriate in the beginning. Like Maria said, blogging is a great idea and a great opportunity for you and your students. Just like anything new, it might take several sessions to establish rules and boundaries, but they'll get there.
ReplyDelete