Many teachers in my school have been using blogs for the last 1-2 years and I hear great things about it. Mostly these are Social Studies and/or English classes but they can definitely be applied in a foreign language setting.
I would like to use blogs in my classroom. Like the book said I’d like to “start small.” I can see myself using them for homework assignments and eventually group projects for the kids. Specifically, though, I would like to use them to:
1) Post prompts for writing in TL-Depending on the vocabulary/grammar topic, I can ask a question or throw out an idea weekly, and have students comment on it using that chapter’s vocab/grammar in TL. Eventually this can grow to writing letters or essays, but it would also be good for short little assignments to ensure they are writing in TL often and not just once or twice a chapter for the final writing task.
2) Provide online readings for students to read and react to. A lot of times when we do a reading together in class it can get tedious. Either one student reads aloud and we follow, or I jigsaw it and we come together to talk about it. Since class time is so short anyways, this could be something I can have students do at home over a longer stretch of time, or it can be done partly at home on the blog, then we can expand in class and reference the students’ posts. This way they can read and write at their own pace.
3) Complete project work in small groups. This would be mostly for student use. Since often times they might be grouped with peers they don’t talk to outside of class, they could communicate via the blog. This way they wouldn’t have to worry about meeting up outside of class (or at least not as much), they can check each other’s work easier, I can check up on their progress, and we wouldn’t have to worry about that dreaded student being absent the day of the presentation and messing up the group.
As far as my own learning, I can see my department and even my school/district on a larger scale, using a blog to share cool ideas, projects, etc. easier. I am on one of the committees in my district and we actually just started a Ning (it’s a blogging type of site) so that even though we are all at different buildings, we can still swap ideas and work throughout the year more often than just the one or two meetings we have each semester.
Jackie,
ReplyDeleteI'm glad that others in your building are using blogs. You can use them as a resource for what works and what doesn't.
You have some good ideas bor utilizing blogs. However, as far as group projects are concerned, you may find that group wikis would work better We'll see them in a later mod. We will also explore social networking through Ning. I'm glad to hear that you are already using it for professional networking. Perhaps in that mod you can comment in the Coffee House forum about how that is working out.
Dr. Burgos
Hey Jackie! I like the idea of using blogs for small group work, though now I am excited to learn more about wikis per Dr. Burgos's suggestion. I think it's great preparation for group work in college courses, where the practice is so common that due to time constraints groups cannot often meet together in a physical space. I am really looking forward to seeing online collaboration at work in a secondary school classroom, being as I have no teaching experience so far. Have you decided now that you will use blogs in your own classroom this year?
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