Based on Blog by Elan Aguilar on 1/13/09.
I thought this article was interesting as it written by a new instructor who was inspired by another new instructor’s blog. The author’s main inspiration appeared to come from an 8th grade teacher, Jesse Thaler, who introduced blogs to her students to help motivate them to write poetry and online journals. What Jesse did not expect was that her students were making supporting comments to the each other’s student blogs in the class and these students were finally getting a voice for their school efforts. I think this story about blogging is inspirational for me to read as I can see how having a voice heard can be important for students at such young age. Also, I think acceptance is an important piece to a young person’s identity. I do think that responsible blogging should be taught at an early age as kids can be pretty cruel sometimes, so that is why I think that responsible blogging should be monitored by a responsible adult. I am learning that blogs can be used more and more for learning and I thought this article highlights how blogs can be used for learning at a pretty early age. Also, this article demonstrates that both teachers and students can be inspired from blogging.
Aguilar, E. (2009, January 13). Blogs Give Students an Audience (Web Log Message). Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/blog-teaching
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I agree with you Chad. I introduced blogging in my 8th grade business/computer science class last school year and I was pleasantly surprised. The lesson given was a intro to windows movie maker. This lesson I taught was inspired by our instructional multimedia class here at CMU. When you mentioned in your post about how blogs give students a voice is absolutely right. My students gave feedback about other students' short movies and their responses were thoughtful, encouraging, funny, a bit harsh, but always positive. I plan to continue using blogging as part of the requirements for my course.
ReplyDeleteThis is interesting, Chad. I wonder too, if the students did not also, even perhaps unconsciously, benefit from the increased exposure their work received. Too often, I suspect students feel or believe they are doing work *for* their instructor(s), rather than for their own benefit. By widening the viewing audience to include peers, an additional realization can develop; one encompassing the real desired outcomes of the writing process.
ReplyDeleteJeremy, I think that is a valuable point. Having more reasons to do something beyond the "grade" certainly provides more validity to an assignment. I actually start blogging in 5th grade. It is really an online journal with prompts provided by me, but it gives students a format to follow to practice appropriate "netiquette". I have had great success for 2 years now and might try 4th grade if our class sizes are manageable. Right now they are at 35 so that might just be inviting trouble.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the above posts also. Providing a "real" audience for the students can be very motivating for them. I have experienced this in my own classroom, and have heard from other instructors that have experienced it as well.
ReplyDeleteI too agree with all the above posts. I think that it is important for feedback and I think peer-to-peer is good. I also think that students learn from each others posts.
ReplyDeleteThere’s nothing like an authentic audience to motivate students. I think that using blogs can help students see that there is a purpose for schoolwork beyond the grade. Starting early to teach students how to be “responsible” bloggers will help make them responsible adults and good communicators. Excellent article and post!
ReplyDelete