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Unlike a prior blog that I posted (Week 5, Blog 1), this article is uplifting as it reflects a success story while also incorporating technology into the classroom to help students learn. The teacher, Mr. Jon Schwartz, originally had blogging as an optional tool for students to use. Over time, more and more students started to want to blog and it was then that Schwartz made it an assignment to blog for at least 90 to 100 words a day.
He then provided some logistics as to how he had to incorporate this writing activity into his classroom. This included getting parental support and teaching the students about internet safety. One of the greatest challenges in getting students to write was the socioeconomics of his students and the fact that many of them were ESL students. Blogging helped him overcome this issue. As students became more and more comfortable with blogging they, gained more and more confidence with their writing. They started to see that their blog was being read by not just one person, but by people in their classroom and from all over the world. They saw the fruits of their labor.What Schwartz is teaching goes beyond just writing. He’s also teaching them about communication, online literacy, and more. This is absolutely a great idea. I believe that the single most important improvement in the classroom now has to be to put a laptop or an iPad into every student’s hands. This way, students will have access to the internet and these web 2.0 tools that are so great and user-friendly. Unfortunately, not every school has this capability and often, the computer labs aren’t working which is a loss of valuable learning time. I seriously hope that in the future, every student has some kind of portable computer that will allow them to have access to great technologies that can augment their learning.
I will be teaching newspaper and yearbook next year. I’m going to try in some way to incorporate blogging into the courses so that students can find connectivity to the real world and for them to find their voice. I’m still in the planning phase for its implementation, yet I’m still looking forward to it.The following site is a clip about how blogging is important to the real-world. I may even show students this clip to get some “buy-in” for the idea of blogging: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srsWqTHZ6W0.
As you talked about in your blog post it would be nice to have a classroom environent where students had access to portable computing devices... I am extremely fortunate that I work somewhere this is a reality. For the past 4 years I have used Moodle for my primary instruction and management of my courses and the materials relevant to that course. Last night I was talking with a co-worker and I think that I might move away from moodle a little bit and begin using blogs more.... the problem with moodle is that the security settings are so tight on it that my students work is not viewable to anyone expect myself and their classmates. Students today are creating materials for a world-wide audience. I think that it makes the learning much more relevant when anyone in the world can view their content!
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