I have to admit something. I am a little intimidated by the idea of using blogging in my lab. I can think of ways that I might do it, but they really make me uneasy. One way I could use them despite my misgivings would be as a way for my children to share book recommendations with their peers. This would not only encourage their use of this new communication tool, but they would be motivated to read and publish their writing to an authentic audience. I think I will soon be brave enough to try this, but I need to play with this technology a whole lot more before I am ready to jump in with elementary students.
One way I can easily imagine using blogs is as a means to keep my parents informed of what we are working on in my class. As I teach all grades in my school (K-5), connecting with my parents can be a real challenge. I have had parents email me to ask about lesson we have worked on, and I have even had parents ask me in person. They love the idea of their children becoming technologically proficient, and I think sharing details of the process would be wonderful. Honestly, I much more likeley to start with this implementation first.
Does anyone else have novice-friendly ideas of how to implement this technology in a manageable way?
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Hey Nancy! I can see your feed can you see mine? No one has commented on my page yet. shaunagardner.wordpress.com. I'm not sure if I have my RSS feed set up right or not. What RSS feed did you use?
ReplyDeleteI think you can introduce blogging in a positive way with your older students. Using blogging as a way to make book recommendations is a great idea. Do you think you could use it as a modified book club of sorts? Perhaps they could all read the same book and then discuss or post reactions to the books. This could even be an invitation for parents to read along and add comments.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking that maybe you could use this as a connection to students at other schools to bring new ideas together. They could all share about the same book, sort of like penpals of another generation.
Good luck with it. I will look forward to finding which twist you take on this!
Thanks for your comment, Lynn. I wonder how teachers go about finding other teachers to connect with on projects like these. I hear about these things all the time, but I have no idea how to initiate one. Do you?
ReplyDeleteHi Nancy,
ReplyDeleteI could not agree with you more about having to learn more and feel more comfortable with this information that we now have before I start introducing it to my students. I also teach computers to elementary students (K-3) and am not sure how the 3rd graders will handle this.
I wanted to tell you about a website called epals. I used it last year with 3rd grade (and 4th grade when I taught them) and it was really great. You locate classes of students to work with and you can email back and forth and I believe they had a blogging application but I never really understood it so I didn't look into it. Anyway, just something for you to check out. There are classrooms all over the world on the site. www.epals.com
Tiffany
Tiffany,
ReplyDeleteThat sounds wonderful. Did you get any special permission from the parents to do this, or did your run-of-the-mill internet permission form cover it?
Beth