There are numerous benefits of adding blogging into a student's curriculum. First, as an elementary school educator, I can see teachers of older grades (4-6) utilizing blogging in order to introduce their students to the Internet. Using blogs will allow students to improve their skills in the world of technology. It allows them to share their unique ideas to a vast amount of people. Learning about this now in a younger grade can better prepare them for safely using the Internet later on in life. This is what the ISTE Standards call becoming a, Digital Citizen. According to the ISTE standards, students are required to, "recognize the rights, responsibilities, and opportunities of living, learning, and working in an interconnected digital world, and act in ways that are safe, legal, and ethical." Teachers can students how to become Digital Citizens through the use of blogging. This falls under the following performance indicator in the ISTE Standards;
Next, teachers can use blogging to allow their students to share their ideas. For example, if students are creating some sort of research project, instead of doing a more traditional presentation, students can create a blog post of their findings. Students can then comment and give their classmate feedback on their project. This sort of usage would fall under the New York State English as a Second Language standard, "Students will listen, speak, read, and write in English for classroom and social interaction. Under this standard, students will learn skills to successfully communicate with their peers and teachers. The use of a blog allows them to do just that, in a controlled environment in which the teacher can monitor. This idea falls under the following performance indicator in the NYS ESL Standards;
Performance Indicator: 2A - Students engage in positive, safe, legal and ethical behavior when using technology, including social interactions online or when using networked devices.
Next, teachers can use blogging to allow their students to share their ideas. For example, if students are creating some sort of research project, instead of doing a more traditional presentation, students can create a blog post of their findings. Students can then comment and give their classmate feedback on their project. This sort of usage would fall under the New York State English as a Second Language standard, "Students will listen, speak, read, and write in English for classroom and social interaction. Under this standard, students will learn skills to successfully communicate with their peers and teachers. The use of a blog allows them to do just that, in a controlled environment in which the teacher can monitor. This idea falls under the following performance indicator in the NYS ESL Standards;
Performance indicator: ESL.I.5-8.4.1.1: Students use a variety of oral, print, and electronic forms of social communication and for writing to or for self, applying the conventions of social writing.
Jean, I like how you talk about how using blogs can begin to teach children about internet safety. This is something that is often brushed over and I think blogging would be a fun and engaging way to teach it. You could even have your students write a blog post about internet safety and what it means. Your second point is intriguing. I never would have thought to use blogging for a research project but that is a great idea! It would be fun to engage students in a multimodal project like that. I look forward to reading more of your posts this semester.
ReplyDeleteDigital Citizenship is a huge issue and one that should be a focus for all teachers and I agree blogging can be a great way to help that.
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ReplyDeleteI’m glad you brought up the idea of teaching your students internet safety through blogging. With the increased ease of being able to access the internet from wherever I think that is something that is too often overlooked. I like your idea about using blogging for a research project because I think the added pressure of knowing that your work is going to be available not only for your teacher but also your classmates and potentially strangers on the internet to see will encourage students to double-check their sources and proofread their work.
ReplyDeleteAnother reason I like this idea is because if you choose to open up the class blog to parents it could develop into a way for them to keep up-to-date on their student’s progress.
Hello Jean. I like the idea of teaching internet safety to your students through the use of a blog. Being a 'Digital Citizen' and knowing how to use the internet safely are important today, but it will be even more so in the future as technology and the internet continue to evolve and change. As digital citizens, it is also crucial to be able to distinguish between true and fake information on the internet. This has been taught in a traditional classroom setting, but I think this would be an interesting lesson to have done through the use of a blog. I also like the idea of presenting one's research project on a blog and getting feedback from each of your classmates. That's something I hope to implement into one of my lessons.
ReplyDeleteI liked and I agree with your appraisal of performance indicator 2A that students use blogging to successfully communicate. Blogging can achieve that goal. If students do a successful blog, the student will have the satisfaction of accomplishing the task and be able to share it with their follow students. All the while having the teacher monitor the activities thus fulfilling the standard.
ReplyDeleteI think blogging to get students to share their ideas is a great idea! You could use a blog for reading groups in the older grades. I feel like it would allow for the student who doesn't regularly raise his/her hand to have a voice and be a part of the discussion. You could even have them use usernames if they choose to be anonymous.
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