I have always wanted a classroom blog. I love reading blogs and getting ideas from the perspectives of others, and have often thought this would be a fabulous tool for my students to utilize as well. I am thrilled about this assignment and look forward to learning from my classmates and their ideas and uses for their blog. My personal definition of a blog is, "an interactive tool for authors to post their thoughts and ideas and receive feedback from readers in a controlled environment."
I enjoyed looking at different blog sites and comparing the different options they had to offer. I initially chose to go with www.simplesite.com for several reasons. It seemed very user friendly and easy to customize. It had lots of tips and suggestions for how to create your blog and add information. And I liked the aesthetics of the site. However, once I started assembling my blog I realized that it was only free for one month and then you had to purchase a subscription. I also looked at www.weebly.com and also appreciated the aesthetics of that site, however it was more difficult for me to navigate and I wondered if it would be more appropriate for a personal blog, instead of something I wanted that would be extremely user friendly for parents and students to use. I have several friends blogs that I follow on blogspot.com and also like that it is part of google blogger so I ultimately made my decision to create my blog using this site. I also really liked that using blogger I could allow more than myself to edit and write on the blog. I thought practice with this would help tremendously when implementing in the classroom. I really enjoyed the thoughts in this article to help me see some of the pros and cons of different blog sites.
I have used glogs and discussion boards in the past and look forward to the opportunity to combine these tools into a classroom blog. I love how glogs are interactive and easy to set up to present information. I also love how in discussion boards I could allow my students to interact and share with each other without taking up time in class as well as minimizing distractions and off topic trails. Discussion boards also allow my students to think about their responses before posting which I think is valuable. This also helps students to gain confidence who might be intimidated to think quickly on their feet or share out loud in front of an audience. I believe that a blog will allow me to present information in a fun and interactive way, as well as allow my students to play a role in commenting and posting their ideas/thoughts on various topics.
This leads into various affordances in a blog. I have already mentioned interactive way to share information and the ability for others to comment and share their thoughts as well. One affordance that I am a fan of is the ability to collect different links or videos and group them together so that you can access multiple sites from just one blog post. It is so convenient to be able to imbed these in the text and that way readers are taken exactly where you want them to go. In Glogster I was able to imbed other weblinks, videos and texts, but I did not have the ability to allow others to comment and interact with the post. I like that you can easily search the archives in blogs and that parents can log in and see what you are learning in class as well as a sample of the work that their child is doing.
As a teacher, I have a few favorite blogs that I reference constantly to help me get ideas to use in my classroom. These are blogs written by other teachers that share how they do certain things in their classroom. This has been one of the most helpful ways for me to learn from others. Imagine how my students could learn if they were responsible for posting things they were successful doing, and then other students could learn from them. I love the potential for students to take initiative in their learning. I am currently a dyslexia teacher but hoping to make it into the library soon. Thinking in terms of a librarian, I think there are so many things I could do with a blog to support the entire school. As far as content goes, I could write different posts about literacy, reading strategies, book themes, genres, etc. I could post about projects that different grade levels are doing utilizing library resources. I could post about school happenings and events and focus on how the library is involved in making our school the best! Every library needs some positive PR and a blog might be the perfect place to show parents and community members all the wonderful things happening in our school. I would really want to take a constructivist approach to this blog. I would want students to build their learning off of ideas generated by others and share in the learning experience with their peers. There are so many different technologies that can be incorporated into using a blog. I have already mentioned imbedding links to other websites, videos, pictures, and other attachments that would make the content of your blog come to life. As ideas are presented, students could upload examples of ways they have incorporated these different ideas into their learning. I truly believe that this experience would benefit all involved.
The biggest obstacle that I foresee in the future is approval from administrators and district personnel for the use of an educational blog in class. Currently, my district does not allow classroom teachers to build blogs with their students. I understand the dangers of the cyber world, but I believe that quality instruction on internet safety and strict guidelines from the school/teacher will help to make this a safe learning environment. It is also important to use appropriate privacy settings. I am a huge advocate of parent involvement. If parents are playing a role on this blog I know that encourages students to present their best and most appropriate work.
I enjoyed looking at different blog sites and comparing the different options they had to offer. I initially chose to go with www.simplesite.com for several reasons. It seemed very user friendly and easy to customize. It had lots of tips and suggestions for how to create your blog and add information. And I liked the aesthetics of the site. However, once I started assembling my blog I realized that it was only free for one month and then you had to purchase a subscription. I also looked at www.weebly.com and also appreciated the aesthetics of that site, however it was more difficult for me to navigate and I wondered if it would be more appropriate for a personal blog, instead of something I wanted that would be extremely user friendly for parents and students to use. I have several friends blogs that I follow on blogspot.com and also like that it is part of google blogger so I ultimately made my decision to create my blog using this site. I also really liked that using blogger I could allow more than myself to edit and write on the blog. I thought practice with this would help tremendously when implementing in the classroom. I really enjoyed the thoughts in this article to help me see some of the pros and cons of different blog sites.
I have used glogs and discussion boards in the past and look forward to the opportunity to combine these tools into a classroom blog. I love how glogs are interactive and easy to set up to present information. I also love how in discussion boards I could allow my students to interact and share with each other without taking up time in class as well as minimizing distractions and off topic trails. Discussion boards also allow my students to think about their responses before posting which I think is valuable. This also helps students to gain confidence who might be intimidated to think quickly on their feet or share out loud in front of an audience. I believe that a blog will allow me to present information in a fun and interactive way, as well as allow my students to play a role in commenting and posting their ideas/thoughts on various topics.
This leads into various affordances in a blog. I have already mentioned interactive way to share information and the ability for others to comment and share their thoughts as well. One affordance that I am a fan of is the ability to collect different links or videos and group them together so that you can access multiple sites from just one blog post. It is so convenient to be able to imbed these in the text and that way readers are taken exactly where you want them to go. In Glogster I was able to imbed other weblinks, videos and texts, but I did not have the ability to allow others to comment and interact with the post. I like that you can easily search the archives in blogs and that parents can log in and see what you are learning in class as well as a sample of the work that their child is doing.
As a teacher, I have a few favorite blogs that I reference constantly to help me get ideas to use in my classroom. These are blogs written by other teachers that share how they do certain things in their classroom. This has been one of the most helpful ways for me to learn from others. Imagine how my students could learn if they were responsible for posting things they were successful doing, and then other students could learn from them. I love the potential for students to take initiative in their learning. I am currently a dyslexia teacher but hoping to make it into the library soon. Thinking in terms of a librarian, I think there are so many things I could do with a blog to support the entire school. As far as content goes, I could write different posts about literacy, reading strategies, book themes, genres, etc. I could post about projects that different grade levels are doing utilizing library resources. I could post about school happenings and events and focus on how the library is involved in making our school the best! Every library needs some positive PR and a blog might be the perfect place to show parents and community members all the wonderful things happening in our school. I would really want to take a constructivist approach to this blog. I would want students to build their learning off of ideas generated by others and share in the learning experience with their peers. There are so many different technologies that can be incorporated into using a blog. I have already mentioned imbedding links to other websites, videos, pictures, and other attachments that would make the content of your blog come to life. As ideas are presented, students could upload examples of ways they have incorporated these different ideas into their learning. I truly believe that this experience would benefit all involved.
The biggest obstacle that I foresee in the future is approval from administrators and district personnel for the use of an educational blog in class. Currently, my district does not allow classroom teachers to build blogs with their students. I understand the dangers of the cyber world, but I believe that quality instruction on internet safety and strict guidelines from the school/teacher will help to make this a safe learning environment. It is also important to use appropriate privacy settings. I am a huge advocate of parent involvement. If parents are playing a role on this blog I know that encourages students to present their best and most appropriate work.
