Monday, March 9, 2009
Blogging in the classroom
How can I use blogs in the content that I teach? I work with emotionally disabled middle school students. I teach all academic subjects so I am sure there is at least one that I could use blogs with. The first one that comes to mind would be to creat a homework blog. I would do this for math. I have noticed that even though the students understand the concept in class when they go to do it by themselves they forget how to do it so the result is, I don't get homework back. The students could blog their questions and I would go on and answer them. I would have to set up a certain time that their questions would have to be posted and some of my students do not have access to computers. However the students would also be able to help each other, if one student understood what they were suppose to do, then maybe they could explain it in a different way than I did, which could help the other student understand the content. By using a blog to do this the students would be able to show off what they know and this would also enhance the lesson by allowing the information to "sink in" and then get it again when they check the blogs at night.
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Rachael,
ReplyDeleteI think that this sounds great! I hesitate posting homework online because I strongly feel that my students should be responsible enough to copy it down on their own. For your population however, I think that this is reasonable…especially with the Q and A timeframe. I think you need to be careful to put a monitor on your blog (easily done in the settings of this very blog) so that you read ALL comments before they officially post. This way you can check to make sure your students are posting correct homework tips and not guiding classmates in the wrong direction!
Rachael,
ReplyDeleteI agree with Erica's comment about monitoring the comments so that you can make sure that if students post replies to other students, they are correct.
The only thing I foresee being an issue, is that even if other students are allowed to comment on questions their classmates may have, will YOU always have the time to login and check student-to-student comments? Or would they have to only comment to each other during your given time frame so that you could approve/check their comments?
If not, the blog will just become useful between the designated times. If your students are not able to post questions in that time frame, the blog may not help them.
Then again, students will find other ways to communicate: text, email, phone, IMs, to get their message across anyway.
Good luck with this, I like it!
Thank you both for your comments. I have a monitor set up on another website I let students post on so I would definitely do that for this type of excercise. As for the Q and A, I haven't really worked out all the kinks yet such as time frame, but if I actually put this into play, I will definitely take time to figure out those issues.
ReplyDeleteRachael,
ReplyDeleteGreat idea! I wish we had special education staff at my school that were so interested in using technology. Way to go!
In regards to your idea - I think it's great, but I'm not sure how it would work in real life. However, I do agree with the other comments about making sure that you have to approve all comments (in case students are giving incorrect information or answers to questions). This would make it difficult, though, because unless you are checking for new messages 24/7, the students' questions aren't going to get answered promptly. You would also need to be very available - which I know is hard for me after school hours (if you said that you would answer questions from 7-9pm, for example, but then had something come up at that time, you would have students waiting on you). Although I think it would be really beneficial, I'm not sure if blogging is the best way to go about it. Maybe getting secure class emails for all the students?