This week I also watched a Ted Talk with Will Richardson
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ni75vIE4vdk).
The talk is very motivating. Though the video is not directly focused on blogs,
it did give me some ideas of how I might use blogs in my classroom.
In the video, Richardson tells a short story about his
daughter and how she taught herself to play Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” on
her piano by downloading the sheet music and watching a video of a piano player’s
fingers on the keys. He says that people today have access to thousands of
potential teachers online, allowing them to learn about anything they are passionate
about.
I can see myself asking my students to research a concept
they would like to learn about. I could see myself following this process:
1. Setting up the purpose: I think it would be important to
set up the lesson by having my students watch a segment of Richardson’s video. This could help me explain how education is changing and how access to knowledge has broadened,
due to the Internet. This would help my students understand the purpose of the lesson –
to use the Internet to research a topic of interest and to share what they have
learned.
2. Practice with blogs and Internet research – I could
create a webquest, complete a practice blog activity (asking students to post
about an interesting question or image), and I could model the process of
finding sources and writing about them with the class.
3. Online research: The students could then seek out videos,
blogs, podcasts, articles, and websites that would help them learn about a concept of their choosing.
4. Analyzing sources: I could also incorporate a lesson on
critical reading and analysis of sources, which would give us the opportunity
to talk about trustworthy sources.
5. Create a blog post (or a series) on their findings: Then I
could ask them to share what they have learned through blog posts – they could
post their research, write about what they've learned, and they could add their own suggestions/advice about the concept (for others who may read the blog posts).
6. Comment and respond: I could ask the students to review
what their classmates have posted and engage in an online conversation. This
would allow them to share what they have learned with the class as well as a
bigger audience through the Web.
I like the ideas above. Learning by doing is valuable and probably the best way to learn a new skill in my opinion. Even with my little ones I rarely spend a lot of time talking to them about things. I introduce it, provide some examples, and then have them try it out for themselves. It gives the content more meaning for them and they're more willing to take risks further down the line.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with you, Thomas! I find that even with adults, pure lecture doesn't work at all. I do the same thing that you do :)
ReplyDeleteYou have some really fantastic ideas here. Although I sometimes lament the loss of the common use of public libraries for research, the accessibility of the internet can't be ignored. We have a vast expanse of knowledge at our fingertips which we can use to learn about anything, anytime we want, anywhere we want.
ReplyDeleteIt used to be that, like Richardson's daughter, if I wanted to learn how to play a popular song on guitar I could #1) purchase the sheet music, or #2) slowly teach it to myself by ear. Now I can conduct a quick search and find "how-to" video instructions or dozens of written instructions created by other guitar players. Of course, as you mentioned in #4, not all of the sources are reliable. Once in a while, you think you're about to play a song by Mumford and Sons, but once you start following the instructions, it turns out to be the Bee Gees (*shudders*).