I was most intrigued by the concept of blogging in the classroom. Blogging is something I've done for a while. I used to blog about my travels and adventures. Then I blogged a lot about my adoption process. I still occasionally use my blog to express opinions and give updates on our life. Blogging is really easy and blogger is pretty self explanatory. I hadn't, however, considered blogging with my students.
Since starting the class I've been intrigued with the idea of using media and technology to increase my students' interest in literacy activities. My students can definitely be described as reluctant readers and writers. Writing is especially a struggle for them. And why wouldn't it be? They write a piece, hand it in to me, I read it, grade it and put it in a folder. Why would they pour their hearts and souls or even minimal effort into that? What's the purpose? Where's the motivation?
As I read about A'idah (Vasudevan, DeJaynes, Schmier, 2010, pp. 29-30) I had visions of my kids blogging about things they are actually interested in. If the goal is to learn to write a topic sentence and supporting details, why can't they write about a movie they saw or their favorite rapper instead of a "boring" topic from a book? Maybe if their writing was out there for their parents, teachers, administrators, and the public to see, they would be more motivated and more interested in producing quality work.
Students can learn a lot of techniques from blogging. Many of my students are proficient texters. They rely heavily on their phones to correct spelling and capitalization. While they can text, they struggle to type on a keyboard. With today's technology, almost all jobs require at least basic keyboard and computer skills. If they gain enough skills, they can also learn HTML, photo embedding and editing, video embedding, music uploading, linking and all kinds of other skills (Vasudevan, et al., 2010, pp. 29-30). If they don't advance that far, they can still learn to express opinions and write well.
I was so impressed with the idea that I've started a classroom blog. We have a long way to go until the students gain the skills they need to blog really well but they are excited to take their turns writing on the blog and to have their pieces heard and appreciated.
References:
Lankshear, C., & Knobel, M. (2013). A new literacies reader. New York: Peter Lang.
I've been known to bad-mouth technology over the past few years, maybe even be a bit of a technology curmudgeon. I am a proponent of being fully present and interacting with my loved ones face-to-face. However, technology is not going away, it will only continue to advance into many aspects of our lives, and can definitely be a useful tool in helping students to learn, express themselves and to help teachers build more sound relationships with their students. It's far more meaningful to have students actually publish their ideas to the internet via blog, and be able to see their teachers and peers respond to their ideas, than as you said, hand in a paper that gets tucked away.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you when you mentioned that if parents, teachers, administrators and public saw the blogs, students would be more motivated in their writing. Blogs help the students put meaning behind their work knowing people will be able to view and in some circumstances comment or question their work. If the student was just to write their work on a sheet of paper and hand in their work when they were done to the teacher, like you said it would be graded, reviewed and put in a folder never to be looked at again. Technology is a great tool for teachers to use and it will keep expanding which will only keep enhancing the students learning abilities.
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