Blogging allows for flexibility within the curriculum and instruction. Students can express their opinions and personal perspectives. As teachers, this gives us a chance to gain insight into student thoughts that we would not usually have access to. The constraints are time and access. It takes time to teach and guide the students through the expectations. Students need to be aware of the language they use to express their thoughts. Maintaining the blog and guiding the students to proper usage could be time consuming.
Blogging could change the way that I teach my classes in several ways. Instead of being the primary purveyor of information I could instead prompt the students with a general topic or problem and then allow them to explore. In this way, Students would not be limited by a text or set curriculum. They could explore current information, generate their own questions, and analyze each others thoughts. I feel that in this setting I would learn as much if not more than the students.
13 Apr 2007 at 04:52 pm | #
I find the ideas in your post create an environment in which tools like blogs are most effective. This whole web 2.0/school 2.0 “thing” is about students and teachers creating. When we create and collaborate/interact, we learn—all of us, students and teachers. I know that even as someone who feels comfortable with these tools, I learn new things every time I work with someone else on these. For me, the session with all of you on Thursday opened my eyes to the potential of blogs as a means of including parents in the learning process. (I’ve commented on this numerous times in other posts here.)
As for the time issue. Yes, there is a learning curve with these tools. It does take time to get comfortable with them and for our students to likewise get comfortable with them and understand the appropriate uses for them. From what I’ve experienced, once you get past that hurdle, kids can really take off.