It was surprisingly easy to find Internet research to support my TechQuest idea. 1. Teaching Technology Today http://www.glencoe.com/sec/teachingtoday/educationupclose.phtml/47 is a helpful website because it explains what a blog is for those that do not know. It also explains some of the 'blogging' terminology. It explains some educational benefits for using blogs within the classroom i.e. Highly motivating to students. It explains that a blog can be used as an educational tool and that blogs can serve four basic functions: Class Management, Collaboration, Discussions, and Student Portfolios. This article was written by an educator that had 22 years experience within the classroom.
2. Why let our students blog? Rachel Boyd, New Zealand. This is a YouTube video that is just over 2 minutes long and gives short snippets of why we as educators should let our students blog.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whm3pxqkvB8 This is a video that shows photographs of young children using the computer and has words come up explaining why it is important to let our students blog, words like; communication, literacy, sharing, ownership and engagement.
3. The Edublogger http://theedublogger.com/about/getting-started-with-edublogs is a great website for those teachers that are interested in blogging but they are not quite sure of how or where to get started. It shows how to get started and what to do if you are in need of help. As well as supplying sites about using blogs with students.
4. Blogging? It's Elementary, My Dear Watson http://www.nea.org/tools/EW-Blogging-Its-Elementary-My%20Dear-Watson.html is an article through the NEA, National Education Association. This article is not just for blogging but for elementary blogging. It gives safety tips on elementary students using a blog through their school.
There are a few ideas that are prevalent throughout these sites that I found on blogs. Blogs help students, especially elementary students, hone their writing skills. It makes writing exciting and different. The students get a change of pace with their audience and this idea gets them motivated and engaged.
I used Yahoo as my search engine. I searched more than once and used different terminology each time I searched. I think that it would be very easy for a teacher interested in blogging to find websites that would be beneficial to them. Blogging is a very hot topic right now. I would like to use some of the websites that I read about in the Valenza article to expand my search.
A good portion of the websites I found were of people's personal experiences as well as ideas of how to blog, these are helpful to those teachers looking to blog for the first time.
I did find that the sites I found solidified my thoughts on blogs as well as what I learned about blogs in CEP 811. Blogs are helpful to students of all ages as long as they are used to expand on education and not used just for the purpose of using technology.
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Your comment about using blogs for an educational purpose rather than just for the sake of using technology is the powerful message that we have been hearing since 810 that literally will change your way of looking at teaching and learning through technology once you embrace it's meaning!! My thoughts and teachings with technology will be forever changed because of that one thought; how has it affected you?
ReplyDeleteLooking to other teachers' successes and failures can be incredibly helpful. It's interesting that you found so many others who have used blogging in their classrooms, and can learn from their experience. I am really interested to see how this works for you, and hope that I can learn from your experiences as I look for other ways to improve writing in my classroom.
ReplyDeleteSeems like you found some balance research, Amiee. Great variety. I always enjoy seeing YouTube videos that relate to our teaching and learning as visuals often send powerful messages.
ReplyDeleteIt's so true that we need to remember that technology is a tool, among many that we use. It provides so many opportunities and shouldn't be used for the sake of being techy.