http://www.allacademic.com//meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/1/0/1/3/2/pages101320/p101320-1.php
This article was written by Professor Gerald M. DiGiusto who teaches undergrad courses at Duke University and Bowdoin College. Although he is concerned about "their promotion of informal and unstructured writing", he nevertheless sees promoting blogs for his students as a positive learning tool. He felt the blogs allowed/forced students to engage the material in more depth. Students often linked to other sites with supporting evidence of their own opinions. In addition, the author used the comments in the blogs as the jumping off point for his classes. This allowed that student-teacher connection so vital for maintaining student interest.
My comments: I thought the author was persuasive in the case he made for including blogs in the course curriculum. He promoted graded, individual blogs because it forced students to take ownership and engage the material. However, he was dealing with university-level students. It sounds like something I might like to try with high school and even junior high school students. However, I am concerned about privacy. I hate for students to be so public about their ideas at such a young age.
I also think the professor, who responds to EVERY entry by students, didn't adequately address the time it would take to include this as just one part of a class. K-12 teachers are particularly time-stressed; it might be difficult to do this in a professional manner without considerable work. Without a doubt, I think it should be taught at some point, perhaps as a unit in a tech class.
EditTeach.org Blogs as a teaching tool
Jane B. Singer | University of Iowa http://www.editteach.org/tools?tool_entry_id=378
This article is written in a Question and Answer format. She responds to the hows, whys, and shoulds of using blogging as part of a college-level course. It is really helpful for two reasons: 1) you can scan it and pick out the questions that you want to read. 2) She very neatly addresses the privacy issue in several of the questions. She gives a very nice overview of what skills blogs are useful in teaching and the subject areas they might work especially well. For those just beginning to use blogs, she also gives nice pointers about how to use blogs most effectively.
This is a great introductory article. Many of the questions she addressed were exactly the ones I have. Definitely the best article I've read on how and why to use blogs in the classroom: succinct, clear, and practical.
Thanks Jan! I appreciated the insight from both of these articles. I also agree with your comment regarding the time issue and number of students in high school classes. I will have to research and find a way to use a blog in the most effective and efficient manner. You have me intested in reading more of the article, "Blogs as a Teaching Tool."
ReplyDeleteHi Jan,
ReplyDeleteI went and read this article and did find it interesting and began to get an idea in my head of how I, as a Math Instructor, might use a blog as an instructional tool. In my thoughts though I was also wondering how on earth could you keep up with everything!? Do you think if a teacher maintained a blog, with daily hints for homework and links to popular websites that was course relevant, and a platform for feedback and questions, that students would use it?
Thanks for the article summaries Jan! I read the second question & answer EditTeach.com article and also found it interesting. Using blogging in a college course sounds totally doable, and could serve as a great tool for student communication. One of my main worries about using blogs in a high school course (art) is lack of computers. The school I'm currently at has a computer lab that is often booked, and there aren't many kids with computers and/or internet access at home. We serve a poorer population with 83% of our kids on free or reduced lunch. So, I think blogging is a useful tool to introduce to my students, but I'm doubtful I could actually use reading or writing blogs as a graded assignment. Not so practical in my current situation.
ReplyDeleteHey Mary and Lisa, I agree with both of you - time for teachers is so scarce that I think it would be difficult to do. I think the only way is either to use blogs from day 1 of student teaching and let it become a natural part of the way we teach. The other way is wait till we get a year or two under our belt and then dip in.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I haven't decided whether it is an effective use of time yet. I'm hoping that by the end of this course and the one that starts in mid-February I will have a better feel for whether it would be good to use during student teaching in the spring/fall.
I am also sensitive to the schools without computers. In my classroom, there is a large gap between those kids who have everything and those who have nothing. I don't think it's quite fair to make those without computers at home to spend every spare minute at school in the computer lab. On the other hand, I want them prepared for a world where they most likely will be using alot of this new technology and ideas.
Not easy decisions before us, I'd say. . .