Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Should I integrate blogging in my classroom?
I work with seventh and eighth grade history students, and the thought of having students blog is both intriguing and frightening. Right now I would have to say that fear outweighs my interest, and I don't know for sure if my district would even allow it for students at my grade level. If I could work it out, I would need to start small. The building community idea would allow for interaction that is not available currently on my website. I already post homework, copies of assignment printouts, practice tests, and links to grades and my email to mention a few. Eventually, I could maybe see myself including student discussion, but the student work and body of knowledge ideas seem to be too much for me right now.
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I believe that your subject and grade level is perfect for blogging!
ReplyDeleteDouglas,
ReplyDeleteWhat an adventure, eh? Here you are working hard, learning new ways to engage and challenge your students and there may be roadblocks by administration. That will be a problem you face as it is a problem I face.
I have been developing a strategy to get the administration on board with blogs. I am in the process of compiling research that shows the benefits of blogging by school kids. I am going to take it along with some examples of blogs that I have participated in and present to my principal. This way, I'm being professional and my principal will know that I am serious and not just playing around on the web.
Good Luck!
Rob Winner
I am also a little scared to start up a blog. I feel that as soon as I start one up, that I will be responsible if a student verbally attacks another student or something of that nature. I feel that I would be constantly worring about the content that is on the blog. I am definitely checking with my admins first, but even their ok's would not calm my fears. But, if we are going to advance the classroom, I guess that we have to take some chances.
ReplyDeleteTyler Winner
I can understand where you are coming from with the fear of open access with blogging, especially with middle school students. I feel that the material being discussed in these blogs would have to be heavily monitored by you and probably the administration to make sure that it would all relate to the content of your teaching. It is a huge responsibility and could become very time consuming.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, do you feel that your students' responses would be more insightful if they were able to blog? I could see how blogging would be a great introduction to the subject matter discussed in class. It could be used for formative assessments to see what the students know and informal post assessments to see what they have learned throughout the class. If your school had access to a computer lab or maybe a class set of laptops, do you think it would be more easily monitored and easily accessible to blog?
Douglas,
ReplyDeleteI think any new adventure is always scary, but I feel like with the age group that you have, blogging will be very successful. I think the small assignments you are doing already lends itself very easily to blogging. Maybe with some of the assignments you post, part of it can be to respond with some kind of answer on the blog itself. Just a suggestion.
Douglas,
ReplyDeleteDouglas,
I understand your hesitation in giving your middle school students such a powerful sounding board. As a middle school teacher, I know that the students will push the envelope as much as humanly possible. I have been doing an online activity with students recently where they had passively written inappropriate things. A male student interviewed a female student concerning her favorite clothes shop. She responded “Victoria Secret” and he posted this on the blog (yet to be published and away from the eyes of others). The offending remark was printed out and the boy called the female’s student’s father to apologize.
Concerning parents, I would draw an analogy between paper and pencil and blogs. Students can insult and intimidate each other on paper just as they can online. The only difference is that it can go to a larger audience and there is no difficulty in finding out who passed the disturbing note because the students had signed an agreement that they would follow the student code of conduct when working on their individual blog.
Douglas,
ReplyDeleteWhen you make your case for student blogs tell your administrator that all blogs will be moderated and checked by you (and an admin student team who is up for the task). All posts can be sent to assigned inbox to be reviewed before it is posted for the public.
You can sign up for a global education blog:
http://globalteacher.org.au/wp-signup.php?new
How To's Video:
http://edublogs.org/videos/
Here is a blurb I found from the Dept of Education site in Victoria:
"Student safety and blogging
It is recommended that you become proficient with your own teacher blog before you create any blogs for your students. Set up your student blogs in spaces specifically designed for education. You can do this at Global Student or Edublogs.
You should always be the administrator for every student blog created for safety reasons. This will allow to moderate and edit content instantly. You can have both you and the student as administrators.
It is recommended that you choose who you want to comment on your blog. For example, in 'settings' you can state that only users who are registered and logged in can comment. You should also ensure that comments are moderated (via your inbox) before they post live. This is the default option for Global Teacher. Comments have been used in incidents of student bullying.
It is important to get permission from parents to create student blogs and publish student work or pictures to the internet. Students should also be clear that personal information such as full names or addresses should never be published on the web and should be aware of their 'digital footprint'.
Some safety tips are provided on Emily P's blog (http://leaemibps.globalstudent.org.au/the-rules-rule/)
You can also view videos and explore lesson plans and online activities related to online safety in Working with the Web.
It is critical that you are fully aware of your professional responsibilities in an online environment."