Top Ten Reasons to use Blogs in class

For one of my units, I had students keep a blog to report and discuss their findings as they investigated the source of pollution in our watershed.  At the end of the unit, I gave a survey asking many questions about their feelings on the unit.  One of the questions I asked was "What did you like best about blogging? / Why should blogs be used in class?" As I was going through their responses, I noticed that several were repeated.  I put together a top ten list based on their answers. 

I've taken the liberty to translate their replies into educational jargon...

10. Literacy - i.e. made me read and write and I didn't mind

9. Engaged Audience - i.e. I worked the whole class!

8. Interactive - i.e. I liked reading what other people said

7. Reaches multi-learners - i.e. I thought is was going to be hard like just
for honors kids but it wasn't

6. Promotes participation - i.e. I turned in every assignment for this unit

5. Electronic record of agenda/work - i.e. everything I did was saved, I couldn't lose it

4. Distance learning - i.e. I could fisnish from home/check in while absent

3. Technology in the classroom - i.e. computers are fun!

2. Creates learner communities - i.e. talked to friends

1. Environmentally friendly - i.e. no worksheets!

As Seen @ Faculty Meetings

At most every facutly meeting, our TRT introduces a technology tool or resource for use in our classrooms.   

These are a couple of my favorites:

1. Wordle
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Overview:Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.

Helpful Links:

• Ways to Use Wordle in your Classroom
• 45 Ways to use Wordle in the Classroom

Wordle Examples:State of the Union Address: President Obama & Famous Artists


2. XtraNormal - If You Can Type, You Can Make Movies!
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• Enhance lessons with a movie
• Have students create their own, suits a variety of learning styles
• Access to the entire library of characters and sets
• One account includes access for students & class admin features

She has dedicated a webpage on our schools site to all presentations. To view click the following link: Technology

Web 1.0 into Web 2.0

During my summer semester, I designed a lesson using Web 1.0 tools using one of the activity structures we were studying.  Mine fell under the information collection and analysis category.   The basic idea of the lesson was for students to make observations of the contrails (clouds formed from water vapor in aircraft exhaust) and submit their findings into a collective global database on the web.  Observations would be organized, displayed and available for students/teachers to use however needed, but one person would have sole control of the data.  For everyone else, it would be a ‘read only’ format which is basically what web 1.0 tools are about.

Designing that project using Web 2.0 would mean that all users would be able to write and edit.  I could see setting up the contrails page as a wiki where contrail observers could post their comments and share ideas about the patterns that appeared in the data.  In the Web 1.0 version, it does not allow for discussion between the groups viewing or submitting data.  This way they could learn from each other and sharing information is more interesting to students especially on an international scale.  It would be a more engaging way for students to participate in the lesson using Web 2.0 tools vs. Web 1.0 tools.   

Helpful links to Podcasts

I was looking for ideas of how to incorporate podcasts into my lessons and I found that there are many sites with podcasts available that are suitable for students from reliable organizations like ABC and NASA.  They could listen to a podcast and summarize what they learned either as an in- class assignment or as homework.

• ABC Podcasts and MP3s Most Radio National programs are available in podcast format
• ABC EdPod Education issues for educators and parents
• CSIRO Podcasts
• NASA Podcasts
• The Education Podcast Network
  EPN is an effort to bring together into one place, the wide range of podcast programming that may be helpful to teachers looking for content to teach with and about, and to explore issues of teaching and learning in the 21st century.

I also found these sites that demonstrate how some Australian teachers and their students are using podcasts to enhance teaching and learning. I thought that these sites would be useful to those of you who are going to choose podcasts to incorporate into the lesson we have to design.

• Rod Blitvich's Podcasts Rod's students have produced a range of podcasts based on the Year 11 and 12 Human Biology Course from 2006-2009. Check out his website to see the assignments set and his students' work.
• Chemistry - meagher's classes Richard Meagher's chemistry podcasts contain both audio and video files and are ready to be downloaded to your ipods.
• Orange Grove Primary School
  Paul Fuller's students' podcasts 2006-2009 are available at Podkids Australia

Wikis!

If I was going to use Wikis in the classroom, here are the 3 top ways I would use them:

1. Collaborative Projects:

 This technology tool is ideal for project-based learning, and cross curricular projects in 9^th grade teams (if they still existed). One advantage of Wikis in collaborative projects is that they are online. Students with access to the Internet outside of school can work together to complete projects without having to be in school. They could collaborate on investigations.  Student groups would report on experimental designs and submit investigation reports to me. I am going to try having them investigate the reasons for the deteriorating health of the Chesapeake Bay.

2. Students Demonstration of Knowledge:

Where students provide information that fits within specific parameters on the Wiki to demonstrate what they have learned. I think it would be cool to have students develop an interactive glossary for defining earth science terms throughout the entire school year.

3. Wikis as a Classroom Webpage:

 This strategy provides everyday information for students use during the school year. The advantage is that everything is centrally located, eliminating the need for the upkeep of the user not friendly CMS ;-) I would include on my classroom webpage a calendar of events, homework assignments, handouts, notes, science safety rules, classroom rules, all my power point presentations, and maybe even pictures of students in class working on projects (if I was being an overachiever).

Blog on Blogs in the classroom

Blogging in the classroom…I think that blogging will spark students' enthusiasm for computers, writing and forming opinions. They’ll learn technical skills, but what I think will really appeal to students is learning that they have a voice online. They may be from a small town in the middle of nowhere, but they're writing online, others are commenting on it, and they're learning that people will listen.  Students will love having an audience.

I’m not quite sure yet how to incorporate blogging into my science lessons because I’ve always thought of blogs as online journals or diaries.  But I’m sure I can turn it into a learning tool somehow.

If I do have students use blogs, I would definitely be concerned about privacy issues.  Perhaps I could require students to use their initials or first names only to identify themselves in their blogs. I also have questions about controlling what gets posted.  I would worry that blog entries could for example, rant about personal troubles with parents or friends. I’m sure the technology exists which is designed to filter out inappropriate postings. I’ll just have to learn to use it.

Maybe I could just start the blogs primarily as a tool to relay information--study guides, handouts and assignments--to students and then work up to making it more interactive.  So eventually I could add a part to the blog year where students (and parents maybe) can post their questions or comments.  Small steps…

Time Crunch

So I’ve noticed that my students have become very teacher dependent and I realized that I was not letting my students do enough problem solving on their own.  If they had problems interpreting results, they looked to me to figure it and tell them what to do next.  I had given in to their constant prodding by the end of the day because I felt like I didn't have the time or patience to let them figure it out for themselves.  It's such a struggle because the curriculum and the pacing guides set us up to teach basic concepts really fast.  Do we have time for students to act a designers?  Is there time for authentic problems in our pacing guides??

Going through this class, I discovered that it's really not the fault of the curriculum or pacing guide. It's part that I've become so wrapped up in SOLs, and the pressure to have common plans and assessments and teaching the way I was taught.  I want my students to be well prepared, so some of that pressure to get through everything is real.  So, is all the time that it takes connecting learning to current events…authentic problems….worth it?  There’s a way to make it work and that comes from proper planning and design which I'm going to work on.