What experiences do I have with blogging? This is it! I enjoy browsing through other peoples' blogs. I appreciate hearing their voice come out through their writing and reading what thoughts they had for that week. I admire how they enhance the pages of their blogs and link to different topics of interest - which are usually interests of mine. Some how through all this I feel connected to my writing cohorts, even if we haven't actually talked.
While surfing through blogs I found one by Vicki Davis http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/ that has been quite helpful. In her blog named cool cat teacher she has an article called Ten Blogging Habits That Win for people that are new to blogging. The article offers "how to" ideas when blogging and also tips on netiquette.
This week in the chapter of Using Blogs in the classroom, I found myself wondering how this would work in our classrooms across different cultures. Would blogging be a way for students to connect in a safe environment? Is blogging a way to bridge across diversity of socio-economic and cultural differences? Would blogging be a way of encouraging students to value and interact with their peers as audiences?
Ideas in this chapter to overcome challenges in blogging included:
While surfing through blogs I found one by Vicki Davis http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/ that has been quite helpful. In her blog named cool cat teacher she has an article called Ten Blogging Habits That Win for people that are new to blogging. The article offers "how to" ideas when blogging and also tips on netiquette.
This week in the chapter of Using Blogs in the classroom, I found myself wondering how this would work in our classrooms across different cultures. Would blogging be a way for students to connect in a safe environment? Is blogging a way to bridge across diversity of socio-economic and cultural differences? Would blogging be a way of encouraging students to value and interact with their peers as audiences?
Ideas in this chapter to overcome challenges in blogging included:
- Teachers must model blogging practices
- Devote class time to blogging
- Set up procedures that do not allow unknown people to contact students.
- Use blog partners so that students receive some comments
I'm still stuck on the challenge of managing a classroom blog, especially with my current teaching position (and I know you're well aware of those challenges). It would be a dream come true to have computer lab one day a week so that there was a time that could be set aside for blogging. It seems like that would be the only way to bridge the diversity you mentioned so everyone had equal access to the internet. Was it in one of our articles that we read about the city of Philadelphia and how they are getting computers for their students so they have access to them outside of school? This is essential! Otherwise, how can we expect everyone to participate to the same extent?
ReplyDeleteI waiver between having students create their own blogs that link to my classroom blog and just having a teacher blog where students comment. This year I'm opting for the teacher blog with student comments to various posts. It's much easier to manage and students are at least contributing to the Internet in more ways than Facebook.
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