Blogging is a great, informal way to express your thoughts and ideas in an open forum. I believe that blogging can be very impactful in a classroom setting.
Blogging is something that I have experimented with the last couple of years as a form of journaling in my 7th and 8th-grade classes. Students in my classroom are on STEM rotations of two-week periods and they work in pairs. They do projects like build a and design solar cars, robots, bridges and other STEM-related activities. No two students are doing the same project at one time. My classroom is what I like to call "organized chaos." Students are challenged to problem solve and work as a team to create a specific project. Blogging goes so well with this curriculum because my classroom is unconventional by nature. Although blogging has become more mainstream, a lot of people still don't see it as a way that it could be used in the classroom. "Teachers facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity."(ISTE, 2008) It is up to teachers to keep moving forward and inspire our students to think outside the box.
Students are able to either blog through regular blogging methods or develop a video blog or "vlog" to document their work. I have a good mix of students picking both types of blogging. One of the most important things about blogging is teaching and practicing digital citizenship. Digital citizenship is a topic that we cover extensively at the beginning of each school year, and several times throughout. One of the ISTE Standards for Teachers states that "Teachers promote and model digital citizenship and responsibility. (ISTE, 2008)
International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). (2008). Standards for teachers. Retrieved from: http://www.iste.org/standards/standards/standards-for-teachers Accessed on 5/15/2018
Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
Hello Jennifer!
ReplyDeleteI was very intrigued by your blog post about using blogging as an informal way to share ideas and thoughts. I am sure that the grade levels you teach give you a better opportunity to use blogs than my lower elementary students. I believe that blogging is a very powerful tool in education if used effectively. The beauty of blog posts are that they do not expire, they are available even if the students finished their course. It gives them a chance to express themselves in writing for readers beyond the classroom walls (Wang & Hsu, 2008). I also appreciate the fact that blogs demand interaction unlike a traditional piece of writing in their notebooks (Richardson, 2010, p.17).
I honestly think it’s a great idea to work in an “organized chaos” as you put it, as it gives your students space for creativity and innovation within your classroom limits. I know you talked about teaching them digital citizenship throughout the year but I really think that it can never be discussed enough with our students. As per the ISTE website, the challenges facing digital citizenship are letting kids learn from their mistakes, keeping up with the changes ourselves and being on the same page with parents and administrators (2015). Some schools have even started designing a digital citizenship curriculum to tackle the challenges; which is something I highly recommend.
More importantly, I recommend that you teach them that the comments on a post are nearly as important as the initial post itself. Since students use different technology tools to become empowered learners, they need to seek feedback that improves their practice (ISTE, 2008). You can introduce the concept of “dollar comments” and “penny comments” (Lucina & Griffith, 2012). The difference between both is that penny comments lack substance and dollar comments offer new information and personal connection (Lucina & Griffith, 2012). I personally think that learning how to give constructive feedback is a skill that they will use for the rest of their lives.
References
International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). (2008). Standards for students. Retrieved from: http://www.iste.org/standards/for-students
Krueger, N. (2015). Top 3 challenges of teaching digital citizenship. International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). Retrieved from: https://www.iste.org/explore/articleDetail?articleid=191&category=Featured-videos&article=3-challenges-of-teaching-digital-citizenships
Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
Wang, S. K., & Hsu, H. Y. (2008). Reflections on using blogs to expand in-class. TechTrends, 52(3), 81-85.
Jennifer,
ReplyDeleteOur school has a STEAM Lab that the students attend each week and they enjoy the projects a lot. Your classroom sounds like a lot of fun and a place where students are engaged in problem solving and collaboration. I believe sharing your projects and reflections would be an excellent resource for teachers like myself who are always looking for ways to incorporate STEAM projects into the classroom!