Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Using a Blog in Education
The idea I have for using a blog to enhance learning in my 5th grade classroom would be to develop a forum for students to use critical thinking skills and communication to better understand the content they are learning. I would like to begin small to help student get acclimated to the idea, so I would start with one subject area, social studies. I would use this technology to have students initially do what we do in class on our discussion boards. Students would answer questions, share opinions, and ideas about what they are learning. Then students would respond to other students' posts and create on going discussions. I believe that this can enhance lessons and content by having students take a personal stake in the information, giving opinions, defending those opinions, as well as seeing the other side of presented information by other students. I also think this will help them create a better sense of community in the class, create respect with their classmates, along with develop and deepen their writing expression and critical thinking skills.
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Michelle~
ReplyDeleteI teach 5th grade also. I really like your idea of having them have a discussion board through a blog. Some students are still at the stage where they would agree with one of their peers because they were friends, because they didn't want to hurt their feelings, or because they didn't know what else to say. By using a blog as a discussion board, I think students would put more thought into their comments and they would enjoy the communication back and forth between their peers. As I reflect on how I would use this in my classroom, I would start by using it for students to write highlights about their learning or questions they may have about a concept. I like this idea of communication between students and between the teacher. I am looking forward to using this as beginning blogs in my classroom.
Thanks for your reply Gina. It is nice that we teach the same grade so we can bounce ideas off of each other,
ReplyDeleteMichelle Epstein :)
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ReplyDeleteMichelle,
ReplyDeleteWill you use this learning experience as a part of your students' grade for each subject or will it be strictly an experience activity you engage them in? Richardson in Blogs, Wikis, Podcast and other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms mentioned that he used a rubric to evaluate his students' work. Have you considered using a rubric as well? Dreanna suggested to me that I put my students in groups to ensure that everyone gets a response I thought this was an important factor I overlooked. Thanks to blogging I will be able to incorporate this into my plans when rolling this new activity out to the students. Let us know how your plans works out. Thanks for sharing.
Well I thought I would start out small with one subject area that way the kiddies will not be overwhelmed- not to mention me! I am planning on using a rubric I just haven't decided on how I want it weighted yet. I like your and Dreanna's idea of small groups and believe I will be doing it that way as well. Thanks for you positive comments,
ReplyDeleteMichelle Epstein :)