In chapter 3 of Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful
Web Tools for Classrooms, Richardson argues that teachers need to become
bloggers before asking their students to create a blog. He states that by
modeling the blog process, teachers can help students understand the value of
blogs. They can also help students learn what is appropriate to post on a blog.
Here are some sites Richardson recommends:
1. supportblogging.com
(This site provides “an opportunity for students, teachers,
administrators, parents, and others to help promote an understanding of the
benefits of educational blogging.” This would be a good resource to use with
students and parents)
2. edublogs.com
3. blogger.com
He also lists some things
to keep in mind when getting started with blogging in a classroom:
1. Consider your students’
ability to access the Internet at school and at home
2. Start small; use a blog
to keep an online schedule and instructions for homework so that you become
comfortable with online communication with students
3. Create a list of blogs
for students to read so that they can see examples
4. Get your students to
practice responding to blogs by having them comment on interesting questions on
your teacher blog
5. Have students create a
collaborative blog with a small group to practice posting and commenting
6. Then, help students set
up individual blogs for themselves
7. Have a discussion on
what students are allowed to do with their blogs. (Make sure to talk about
things like: is it all right to post pictures, diary/journal type entries, and
posts about events/things outside of the classroom or curriculum.) Allowing
students to personally invest in blogs can make them more engaged, but it can
make assessment difficult
8. Make sure
administrators and parents are clear about the expectations and reasoning
behind your use of blogs
Overall, I found most of
this information to be common sense, but it’s good to have this resource to
refer to when using a blog with students. After reading this chapter, I might
use the author’s suggestion of creating a blog for a small group of students to
practice blogging in a safe way. This might help some of my digital immigrant
(older students) troubleshoot with each other when first learning how to blog.
I don’t think this would be necessary for younger students (digital natives)
because they might not need as much scaffolding with blogs. I do like the ideas
of asking students to read examples and talking about what is/is not
appropriate to post on an educational blog.
Your first point is so simple, yet one that is so often overlooked. How often do teachers ask students to do something that they themselves are not familiar with? I hope that I am wrong in saying all too often.
ReplyDeleteFor another course I am taking I have been reading essays on trying to bridge the gap between writing for school and writing for personal reasons. The later seems to be easier, so researchers are looking at how to ease the process for academic purposes. I think blogging would be a good place to start.
Thanks, Thomas. I'm hoping that by using a blog in my class I can make our writing assignments more important to my students, so that they are not just writing for a teacher, but instead writing for a bigger audience. Your other class sounds neat - bridging the gap between personal and academic writing. That sounds interesting, yet also very challenging.
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