I have been incorporating Blogging in my lessons for about a year now. And so far I must say I am really impressed with the outcome! I teach U. S. Government to 11th and 12th grade students at a career and technical high school. Getting my students excited about writing and working collaboratively has always been a high priority and sometimes a challenge. But I have found that though the use of my class Blog site, my students are more engaged in their interactions with one another and their writing has seemed to improve.
I have experimented in a number of different ways in using Blogging to get my students to work collaboratively, interact with one another, showcase their work, and reflect on lessons and projects we have done in class. Here are a few examples.
Last December my classes did an examination of the 8th amendment and the use of the Death Penalty in the United States. I first created an assignment for them to respond to a question on the class Blog site that stated, "Do you believe in the Death Penalty? Why or why not?" This gave students the ability to talk about their feelings on the subject and respond to each other’s posting. Next we conducted a project where the students worked in groups to create a presentation on their views of the Death Penalty, the constitutionality of cruel and unusual punishment, and an examination of the methods of execution. I had the students use the Blog site to post ideas, in and out of class, to help them put their presentation together. This got a lot of good response. Many of my students said they liked that they could, at any time during the day, post a comment or a suggestion for the groups PowerPoint or speech on their individual groups page. I saw a lot more collaboration during the use of the Blog site than in past years. It also gave me a better understanding of who was contributing what ideas.
Another example of using Blogging in my classroom is for reflections. Sometimes I will post a question, video, poll, or even a podcast dealing with a subject or project we have done. The students will then have the opportunity to respond and show what they have learned. In some cases I have used their responses as their assessment. Just recently we did a project on the Race for the Presidency. The students got together in groups and did research on a particular candidate and then gave a campaign speech. Afterwards, I posted a few questions in response to how they truly felt about the candidate they were assigned, how the other groups did in their presentation’s, and what it was like working in their particular groups. Again the responses were great!
I have begun to see that there are many different uses and advantages for a Blog site in the classroom. Most notably is the increase in my students willingness to participate and the increase in the quality of their writing. I believe that using Blogging as a tool and a forum for student work appeals to the students of today more on their level of communication. I also feel that their writing increases because of the audience that they are portraying to is much larger than if they are writing on paper or typing out an application. I plan on continuing my use of Blogs in my classroom and finding new and innovative ways to incorporate them in my lessons.
I think it’s terrific that you’ve seen an increased level of participation from your students! With that age group, they are already blogging on a personal level, so creating outlets at school for them to communicate educational in the same fashion has to be more engaging and comfortable for them. Isn’t that what teaching is about – finding a way to connect to students? I am curious as to how/when you have your students post responses to your blog questions. Do they have their own, or is it a class blog to which they’re posting? Also, do you have them respond at school or home? If at school, do they each have access to a computer simultaneously, or do they share?
ReplyDeleteThank you Kristin
DeleteI do think that my students are very connected to my class because of the fact that I use so much technology that they are using on a daily basis. I am very fortunate to be working in a school that is so rich in technology.
To answer your question about when I expect my students to respond to the class Blog, well it all depends on the type of assignments I create. If I am doing a huge project which requires of to be working in a computer lab for a few weeks I will incorporate the Blog site in their daily task. That ways I know they have time to respond. This year has been quite different though with the addition of the iPads in my classroom. I will have my students do most of their Blog work in class on their iPads either at the beginning or end of class. If you are going to make a Blog assignment a requirement you have to allow for class time. This is tough to negotiate because taking too much time to respond to a Blog can take away from othe3r class activities. However, I do post at least one question, video, picture, or podcast in relationship to what we are studying in class each week and the students can access and respond to the postings at home or at school for extra credit. But these assignments are never a requirement because I do not set class time aside for them to be completed.
Thomas,
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like your students are really taking to your assignments! Participation and eagerness to participate are our goals! As far as a challenge, (hard to find one here) you mentioned that you get a better understanding of who is participating--do you ever run into problems with a student (or two) NOT participating? I know that we all have reluctant students, so I was just wondering if you have been faced with that challenge and if so, what did you do to overcome it? At my grade level (third grade) I would probably have my students do just what we are doing for our class--copy and paste the URLs to a word document so that I can go and check and see what posts they made. I would also require them to make a minimum number of posts--that way, they are all being held accountable. Keep up the great work!
Great question! And the answer is YES I will from time to time have students who do not respond or respond poorly. For the students who do not put much time into their posting I usually will reply to them on the Blog site with a question or two to highlight that this posting is missing something. As so as I do I will see other students doing the same thing. It’s amazing to see that once one student decided not to put the work required into their post that other students beginning to get upset and ask questions like I do. The student who first responded poorly usually get embarrassed or frustrated so they go back and add to their post. Now that has only happened a hand full of times and I never allow any postings from other students that are mean or hurtful, only encouraging.
DeleteNow for students that refuse to participate at all... This is handled just like any other assignment, you didn’t do it you don't get credit. If they student is refusing to use the Blog Site (this has not happened yet) Then I would most definitely allow them to complete the assignment in paper and pencil. Believe it or not there are still some students who do not like using technology because they have not had the opportunity to use it in the past and they get intimidated by it.
Thomas,
ReplyDeleteYou definitely seem to be putting blogs to good use. I like how you are able to motivate your students and get them to actively callaborate with eachother on various lesson topics. I have not used blogs in my classroom yet but reading posts and articles on the great success and benefits of blogs make me very eager to get started. The only challenge that I would be concerned with is how do you control what students post? Are you previewing the student's responses before they are published to the blog site? Did you give a lesson on blog etiquette before you started blogging? I teach middle school and these are the things that would concern me at their age level and since your students are older I thought it might be a concern for you as well. I think that I would use the RSS Feed to quickly preview the blogs before hand and when I am sure that they are blog appropriate I would approve them for posting to the blog. You also mentioned that you use the blog as a form of assessment, how do you assess their work? Do you give them a time frame in which to respond to, set up specific guidelines for their responses, and provide them with a rubric? I think that that is how I might handle it. Since you have experience with using the blog I am very interested in hearing your suggestions on what works and does not work. Thanks for the help. Good luck and keep up the great work!
Daniela
Daniela,
DeleteI use EduBlog in my classroom. My school has purchased us the full addition and it is wonderful! In fact, the only reason I chose to use Google's version for this class is to try something new.
Anyways, EduBlog has a great dashboard which allows me to view, edit, and trash any posting by my student before I approve it to the site. And yes, I have had to do so plenty of times at the beginning of the year. But as we progress the students begin to build a sense of Netiquette with their writing.
As far as using the Blog Site for assessments, this does not change anything from a normal paper pencil written essay or exam. The same methods are used to evaluate and grade the students.
Tom -- I looked forward to reading your post, because I know you're secondary and so am I. I'm new to this blogging world, but have many ideas about how I'd like to start in my classroom with 9th and 10th grade English. My questions are somewhat in the same vein as Daniela's.
ReplyDelete1. Do you read all the posts first before they get published?
2. What Wiki do you subscribe to?
3. Did you have issues getting started in your school with the Wiki as far as getting blocked?
4. Did you have parents sign permission slips?
Thanks -- sorry if I seem a little high maintenance at the moment, but I truly love your blogging ideas and hope to be integrating blogs into my literature courses soon. Mary
Mary,
DeleteAll really great questions and I will try my best to answer them all for you!
1. Do you read all the posts first before they get published?
Answer: Yes! Absolutely! Bullying and Cyber Bully is a huge thing in Ohio and all teachers are required to have all postings to their Blogs, Wiki's, and websites reviewed before publishing. I use EduBlog in my classroom and in the posting above a give a pretty good explanation on how this works.
2. What Wiki do you subscribe to?
Answer: I personally do not like Wiki's that much and I do not use them. I have a cart of 25 iPads in my classroom for my students to use and GoogleSites works the best. Check out my site http://www.tinyurl.com/gorsegov
3. Did you have issues getting started in your school with the Wiki as far as getting blocked?
Answer: Not at all. We have a pretty sophisticated web browser detection system that monitors all computers, laptops, iPads, iTouches, and Cell Phones. So we can allow certain sites and block others. If the server gets cracked we know about it because the students have accounts to sign onto the WIFI system and they can be tracked at all times.
4. Did you have parents sign permission slips?
Answer: We have had a lot of issues getting this started. Once the entire school went to WIFI we had to start monitoring everything. We have a standard internet usage form that the student must sign along with their parents. This pretty much states that if a student violate the internet policy their privileges are permanently revoked. This has worked well.
Any other questions please let me know!
Thomas,
ReplyDeleteI also do not understand why so few states are participating in integrating ICT literacy into schools. I just heard about The Partnership for 21st Century Skills this week. Could it be possible that they haven't heard about it either?
Janet Bissett