“Writing stops; blogging continues. Writing is inside; blogging is outside. Writing is monologue; blogging is conversation. Writing is thesis; blogging is synthesis...none of which minimizes the importance of writing.” (Richardson 30-31)
This is the quote that we used to describe the heart of blogging. Writing is final whereas blogging is a constant, changing, interactive process of collaboration. Weblogs are easily created and easily updated. They are instant and highly interactive meeting spaces that can be made private or public. By using weblogs, you are able to expand the walls of the physical classroom to a larger, world wide audience. Weblogs are central locations that host other potential classroom technologies (Twitter, Youtube, podcasts, photos, etc.).
Create a comment below and share your thoughts below about the potential uses and collaborations of weblogs. Here are some prompts to get you started:
What questions come up when you think about the many uses of weblogs? How might you use blogs in your own classroom? What are the benefits of blogging? How did this study of weblogs change your opinions on weblogs? Any other concerns or comments?
Presentation resources:
Weblog Slide
Weblog Outline (Google doc)
I made the assumption that a weblog was a blog where someone just posted their opinions to an audience that was interested in a common theme or subject. I am glad I was wrong as I am not a big writer, but I do get very excited to share learning in the classroom with parents. A weblog is interactive and fluid and has practical applications for communicating with both parents and older students. I see myself using it to share our daily/ weekly "happenings" and perhaps as a launching point for conversations for parents to have with their children Maybe a question will be posed to the students or family or I might suggest an extension activity that they can do at home to reconnect with what we are doing in the classroom. I would like it to be a place where parents/students can download assignments, rubrics, newsletters, permissions slips etc as well. If we learn a new math technique, perhaps a video walking parents through the steps will be helpful while they help their child with homework. I was very intimidated after reading chapter 3 of how I would get started on my own and am thankful that we had the opportunity in class to learn together.
ReplyDeleteI too made the assumption that blogs were merely reflections and daily diary postings. It was really neat to read Richardson's chapters on blogs and find out that there are many different levels of blogging. While there are blogs that cater to personal reflections there are also blogs that really invite the readers to collaborate with the author(s) in order to create a constantly changing, interactive, and critical thinking community. The benefits of blogging are really powerful. As a teacher, I will have the ability to bring those resources from around the world to my very own classroom and vice versa. At an elementary level, I would be able to use a blog in many different aspects from giving the parents resources to help their children at home to connecting my students with people around the world that can offer insight into our lessons. My students will also have an opportunity to transform their literacy by opening up their work for adaptation through reader input taking their writing from final to updateable.
ReplyDeleteYou got to exploring quite a few features in the exemplar that you created for your class presentation. I hope that you continue to deepen you skill blogging and will one day get to implement on in your classroom.
DeleteThe chapter on how blogs are used in various classrooms really engaged me. I spent quite a bit of time today brainstorming various ways to incorporate a classroom blog into the K-1 classroom that I currently work in. I visualized a classroom hub where in addition to all the information that parents could access(school calendar, the almost daily informational paper sent home etc). it would be great to post student comments heard during the day and post excerpts from their writing papers. We could post photos of the artwork they create to decorate the classroom and hallways. It would give our parents who have little or no opportunity to visit the school a chance to see these things..I am excited about the possibilites
ReplyDeleteYes...all very great ideas Jane. I'm sure you could also find some examples to give you even more ideas when the time comes.
DeleteI have always been aware of blogs and blogging, but never really understood how I could use them to benefit my students and classroom. I think that Richardson gave some really good insight into using blogs to help communicate with students, parents and communities. I am already brainstorming ways in which I can incorporate blogging and other technology into my future classroom after reading through Richardson's book. I feel that the more resources you make available for parents to communicate with teachers the better. Parents are busy, and if they can check out what their child is doing in class from work or their phone they are more likely to do so. It also keeps an open dialog between parents and the teacher throughout the school year.
ReplyDeleteI am thankful for Richardson's perspective on Blogging in education,and for the opportunity to create our own blogs. I can see countless effective uses for blogging in my future classroom in many areas that fall into the rough categories of:
ReplyDelete1) Blogging as Virtual Learning Environment. I can envision using a class blog as a complementary "Classroom Space." Both as a stand-alone extracurricular resource, and as a common touch-point in the classroom.
2) Blogging to capitalize on unique learning opportunities. I envision using blogs to encourage parental involvement and "shy-student" expression. Beyond that, I am inspired by the opportunity to aggregate student learning through peer collaboration.
A question I still have is:
1) Citation and Plagiarism Issues: As a History Major, source-citation was drilled into my head on a nearly constant basis. From what I read, the consensus is that a hyper-link to the source page is sufficient for citation in the Blog-o-sphere. This does not strike me as thorough enough, and I would like to learn more in this area.
2) What is the proper writing style for student comments? My perspective is emphasis should be placed on encouraging participation and thus accepting student comments in whatever appropriate form they choose.
It was awesome to read about the different uses of blogs in the chapter. Like the comments I have read before mine, I too had misconceptions about the blogging world, and thought that they were more of an online diary than something that we can utilize as a resource for ourselves, and to further the ideas and knowledge that our students gain online. This idea that I had definitely changed after reading this chapter, and seeing the examples that were shown during the presentation in class. Blogging in the classroom can be valuable in many different avenues. I could imagine utilizing blogging in my classroom as a resource for parents to touch base with me directly, see what kinds of things are happening in the classroom, and other information that we can share with one another that is relative to our classroom demographic. Another thing that I really liked in the chapter was the idea of giving the more shy students in your class a voice! It is awesome to think that you could be allowing students who may be more closed off to open up, and share their ideas without the pressure of sharing in the classroom.
ReplyDeleteI think that the only concern that I could really think of at this moment is safety on the internet, especially with younger students. As an educator, monitoring students with their blogging, or only having teachers allowed access to it would be a way to protect students when blogging. I also think to, having the safety on the internet discussion, and receiving permission for students is imperative before utilizing any tools on the internet in the classroom.
As so many before me have said, I too believed blogs were only used for the purpose of an online diary. Through the reading and in class work it was interesting for me to see how blogs can be so much more. I believe in the math world blogs could be used as a source of reference for class materials and as a discussion area for students looking for further help. The benefits of allowing students to collaborate outside of class can be huge. Studying blogs in class has completely changed my view of blogs. I now see blogs as a useful resource for a classroom in addition to their other uses.
ReplyDeleteHow do disabled students benefit from weblogs? Some can read very little, some have visual impairments, some can't spell? How do we make it usable for them? To me, students with disabilities can use multimedia (Skype, videos, etc.) to communicate with other people. I think it is important for them to experience outside "worldly" experiences. To let them learn about other peoples and cultures. The benefit for these students would be to get them outside of their normal classroom. A place where someone would listen to their thoughts and ideas, where most of the time they might be brushed aside by their neighbor. This study of weblogs introduced me to the collaboration possibilities we have access to and how we are able to open the doors from our classroom to go anywhere we want. It almost feels like the TV Show "Reading Rainbow", where we can experience our own field trips inside our classrooms.
ReplyDeleteBefore this class, I pictured myself just continuing reading the blogs that I currently read and not ever having my own blog. I mean, how do these people have the time to blog and do all those cool things? Their creativity is mind blowing. So yes, making my own blog was an intimidating adventure. However, now, after sitting down and putting one together in an evening, I realized how simple it is. I am excited to use a blog to chronicle my adventure in this program as well as future use in my classroom. I see many uses ahead for a blog in a Special Ed. classroom. One of my favorite ways to interact with our students is through art projects and sensory activities. I would love to post pictures of these activities as they occur so our parents can share in their children's adventures. I know as a parent of a child with special needs, I was always wondering what he was doing at school. I would have definitely checked out what his teachers posted had they used blogs. I am sure I am not the only parent who wonders what is happening in their child's classroom.
ReplyDeleteKristine, I also had the thought previously that I would be a blog "voyeur" not a blog participant, let alone create my own. After using Blogger and experimenting a bit I now feel that this is a tool that is within my grasp. Special education is my field as well. I can see using this within my classroom room as a discussion and expansion of learning experience tool. I would really like to see how this would work to get my students outside of the walls of my classroom and maybe work to collaborate on blog that joins classrooms in different regions. I would also like to show the families of students what we are doing and how their child is be nurtured and challenged.
DeletePreviously, I have used blogs to communicate with extended family. The typical posting of cute pictures of the kids and getting admiring responses back. Our family is spread across this US with no relatives within 500 miles of or home, so this solved a problem for us.
ReplyDeleteNow I want to try to use a blog as a tool to build community to support the robotics after school program that I run. The program depends on quite a bit a parent volunteers. They tend to not be the typical parent volunteers, they are the parents with day jobs who are intrigued by robotics and doing things with the kids that they also love. These volunteers are busy and hard to reach out to but once they are engaged, they become expert teachers of engineering, a subject that is not easily covered in school. And who better to teach it than parent engineers?
Maybe the extra communication of a blog will allow some time and input from each of the parents involved to accumulate and grow into something more substantial and a way to hook the next parent just waiting to coach a team of young robotics engineers.
Previously, I have used blogs to communicate with extended family. The typical posting of cute pictures of the kids and getting admiring responses back. Our family is spread across this US with no relatives within 500 miles of or home, so this solved a problem for us.
ReplyDeleteNow I want to try to use a blog as a tool to build community to support the robotics after school program that I run. The program depends on quite a bit a parent volunteers. They tend to not be the typical parent volunteers, they are the parents with day jobs who are intrigued by robotics and doing things with the kids that they also love. These volunteers are busy and hard to reach out to but once they are engaged, they become expert teachers of engineering, a subject that is not easily covered in school. And who better to teach it than parent engineers?
Maybe the extra communication of a blog will allow some time and input from each of the parents involved to accumulate and grow into something more substantial and a way to hook the next parent just waiting to coach a team of young robotics engineers.
I really enjoyed the information from the chapter and from the presentation about blogging. I too fell victim to the notion that blogs were just online diaries. I am happy to know that this is simply untrue. In the first grade classroom I support, every student has a kidblog. Truth be told, I thought this was extremely ridiculous, up until last week when I had the opportunity to really understand what blogging actually is. I have since gone onto our classroom blog and was very excited to see how great this classroom tool actually is. It is a place where the kiddos have an opportunity to share their work and achievements. A place where parents and family members can send their children notes of praise and encouragement. It also acts as a place where parents and teachers can connect with each other and share information. I am thoroughly impressed and will absolutely be incorporating a blog into my life as an educator.
ReplyDeleteGreat presentation ladies!
Blogs are such a neat way to be able to express ideas and give information needed at the same time. I learned that if you make it such, it can be a one stop destination for parents, other teachers, and students. Using blogs in the classroom is an idea I did not think about until reading this chapter and hearing the presentation. It is in fact, a great idea. Students it seem have a hard time keeping up with assignments and readings, especially at the high school level where there are so many social aspects going on as well. Giving them a place to go and look at information and update them on things that they may have forgotten, because what 16 year old really can remember everything :), allows them to have a higher success rate. They learn about the responsibility of needing to look at the assignments and also see a teacher giving them that opportunity to learn responsibility. I feel this is important at the high school level, because most colleges all have some form of blog for their classrooms. If we aren't teaching our students before they go into college, they may have a difficult time adjusting.
ReplyDeleteThe presentation was great. I really enjoyed starting my own blog and being able to learn what that would look like for my own classroom. I can't wait to explore more about Blogger and have my blog all ready for when I do have my own classroom. :)
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in middle school and first discovered about blogger, my cousin had to figure out the HTML configuration of getting the color, pictures, as well as links that I wanted to put into my weblog. I have yet to build myself another weblog since then, until last week in class. The variety of choices in personalizing your weblog, and how user friendly figuring out HTML coding and layouts today is incredible. Blogs are convenient in more ways than one, it enables parents, staff, and school officials to be caught up in precisely what it is that you are currently working on in your classroom. Also, it makes communicating and monitoring your child’s progress within a class/subject easier and instant. I use to think of weblogs as being more of a “dear diary” resource as well, but am amazed at how advanced they’ve become and how innovative users have become in utilizing the weblog.
It was interesting to read this chapter because I had a lot of misconceptions about blogging. My focus will be on early elementary, so as I was reading I was brainstorming ideas of how I could use blogging in my classroom. I think it would be a really good way to keep in communication with parents especially. As a teacher, I could post calendars, reminders of upcoming events, worksheets to supplement their schoolwork if parents would like to work more with their children at home, maybe post projects the students have been doing, things like that. I think it would be a really good way to stay organized and keep parents up to date on what is going on in the classroom as well. This chapter really helped me see blogging in a new light.
ReplyDeleteThe only blog that I had read on a regular basis actually belongs to a parent of one of our autistic students. I always find it interesting to see what that student is like at home or outside of school. Other than that I didn't really have any interest in reading other blogs or creating one of my own until we studied them last week. I am becoming more and more excited about the blog that I created in class and I think this will be a great tool to help me keep myself organized. I would also like to create a classroom blog some day so the parents have an opportunity to see what's going on in our classroom.
ReplyDeleteThe chapter opened my eyes a bit to blogging since I had never used blogger and had only glanced at a friends blog. I really enjoyed making a blog and seeing all of the possibilities. The presentation was good and I am looking forward to having a classroom blog in the future. I have also been looking at others blogs to get new ideas and what they include.
ReplyDelete