- Ah, the Blog. Andrew Sullivan, of The Atlantic, writes that the word "blog is conflation of two words, Web and Log. It contains in its four letters a concise and accurate self description"(Sullivan, 2008) Blogs are just that, a long log of one's thoughts on the web. While I've spent hours reading the musings of others online in blog form, I have never been vulnerable with my own thoughts and ideas in this format. Yet, as I consider the rich array of ways in which to incorporate this technology in my classroom, I'm wondering why I didn't pick this up sooner. I would love to use a blog to showcase student work and projects throughout the year. My middle schoolers do a "night at the museum" event where they build a civil war museum, invite their parents, provide authentic snacking cakes from the time, and even perform mini monologues. It would be wonderful to share them on a blog for everyone to see. I think having a place to keep parents up to date with what we are doing in the classroom is incredibly valuable. They love to see what their kids are up to and how much they are learning. I work for a private school, and parents often feel a strong sense of investment in. Offering them an inside look would go leaps and bounds to show parents all that we do during the day. Additionally, I can see the benefit of allowing the students to publish their own work on a blog. Sullivan goes on to mention the thrill of blogging from a writer's perspective, "From the first few days of using the form I was hooked. The simple experience of being able to brodcast my own words to readerswas an exhilirating literary liberation"(Sullivan, 2008) Building student agency and giving them a voice is an integral part of 21st-century learning. Blogs offer a tool that can be utilized to achieve that end. The potential for immediate feedback and interaction with one's writing offers benefit and risk. I envision my older students writing opinion pieces on current events, exercising critical thinking skills in the process. One potential risk I foresee with blogs is when students are given a megaphone for their ideas, some less mature students may use the platform to engage inappropriately with the content or one another. This is why I appreciate the moderator settings google has added to blogger to help prevent harrasment or bullying in the comments. Steps must be taken by the teacher to manage classroom behavior, even when its behavior online. In this case, I think the benefits of the technology outweigh the risk.
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Union Tent
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Shiloh Exhibit
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Amanda,
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of a Middle School Civil War Museum. My school has a history of doing a Wax Museum in Jr. High. Each student picks someone from within their course of study from the current year. They write a presentation in first person and then memorize it. On the evening of the Wax Museum, they dress as the person and stand in frozen positions. A button is pushed and they will tell you all about who they are and their importance in history. The only movement they may make other than speaking is a few slow robotic like movements. I also like all of the extras involved in your War Museum.
I also like the idea of using a blog to communicate with parents but at the same time I really like the idea of using Google Sites as well. I see that I am really going to need to do some analyzing and comparisons and decide the best directions to go based on my students ages and my objectives in introducing the various platforms available.
The Night at the Museum idea sounds like so much fun. I agree that a blog could be a great platform to showcase the students' work. You could even have students contribute their own posts to a class blog and ask them to describe what they added to the showcase, share their takeaways regarding what they learned from their peers, and generally reflect on the evening. I agree that, especially at the middle school level, student blogging should be moderated, but properly monitored, it can be a good experience for them in how to write for an audience of peers and adults.
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