Sunday, May 3, 2009
Blogging in the Classroom
Ever since this class started, I have been very intrigued with the idea of incorporating blogging in my fourth grade classroom. Next year, the three fourth grade teachers are going to departmentalize math, science, and social studies. I am the teacher who will be taking social studies for all the classes. I really want to incorporate blogging into the curriculum so that all three classes can communicate on a specific question or topic that we talk about. I have thought about what I could do and I decided that I would create a blog site for my students. Every two weeks, I would post a question about the topic that we are discussing and the students would be responsible for posting their answer and responding to other's comments. Not all of my students have internet access, so those that have access could do this at home and those that don't could complete this at school in their classrooms when they have free time. Using a blog would enhance my lessons and curriculum by allowing the students to use higher depth of knowledge thinking skills to answer the question and also to learn skills in responding to others in a mature manner. I can't wait to try this out next year. If anyone else has other ideas that I could use for blogging in a social studies curriculum for fourth grade, I would appreciate your input.
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Social Studies lends itself perfectly for blogging. You can post pictures of significant historical events, post thought provoking questions which promote higher level thinking and collaboration of ideas. Does your school have a computer lab where you could bring the students for lessons on blogging? As we saw in the video, it would be important to set the ground rules for appropriate blogging. I think this would be especially true for fourth graders who have most likely not done this type of activity before. Good luck with this!
ReplyDeleteThis would be great opportunity for you to introduce such a great tool for social studies. You must plan very carefully with the corporation, administration, and technology department of exactly what is wanted. Cost for such a program is nominal and can be taken care of with technology grants and possible PTO/PTA contributions. The main problem is the number of computers within your classroom. The blog may require students to check often to make further comments and postings. This could require more computers than what you have. Then this causes another problem in scheduling computer lab, if you have one, with the other teachers. To help with that problem maybe collaborate with the other teachers in their units and they can turn in posting blog questions also. This would help in the students getting more computer time at school and develop a more comprehensive style of learning for the students. In turn, better test scores and a better understanding of the possibilities that technology has for your students as they get older.
ReplyDeleteIn the end, compile notes and students work to present to the administrators and possibly school board to demonstrate the importance of such technological programs can aid in your entire grade’s success in the future. Then ask for the funds for more classroom computers or a laptop cart that is wireless and can be moved from classroom to classroom.
These are just some ideas that I have had and have heard about when I work for the tech. department during the summers.
Good luck!!!
I really like your idea! It gives you an opportnuity to network with your other classes. This could give your students and their peers a chance to have social and cooperative working. It is something that you can take personal and school pride in. I am very confident that this would spark a great deal of interest and conversation in the cafeteria. Blogging can get students very excited. They will feel that they are doing a fun activity. They can experiment and stretch their wings with. This wonderful benefit could instill a passion for the content. While they are enjoying what they are doing, they will be learning and a gaining deeper understanding of technology, the content, and the world in which we live.
ReplyDeleteA question that I have for you is,how exactly would you add this into your daily and weekly lessons? Also, would you ever think about expanding your blogging experiences outside of the classroom?
Beth,
ReplyDeleteOur school does have a computer lab that I could take the students to for a tutorial in blogging. I did plan on doing this the first week of school so that they know what is expected of them and how they should respond to comments from their peers. I also thought about using the school's floating projector/laptop and giving a tutorial from the classroom. This way I wouldn't have to worry about the students playing on the computer while I am trying to teach them how to blog. Thank you for your comment!
Aaron,
ReplyDeleteThank you for the wonderful ideas about how to get my district involved with more technology. All the elementary schools have a technology coordinator who is very good with helping the teachers integrate new technology into their curriculum. I do plan on asking her to help me set up a district approved blog for my students. If the blog is successful and other teachers want to use it for their classes, I would love to present it to the board and hopefully try to get more money for technology in our classrooms.
About collaborating with the other two teachers in having the students blog in their curriculum area, I'm sure that the science teacher would be willing to do this because she wants to incorporate technology into her classroom as much as I do. The math teacher is a bit hesitant when it comes to technology. She is a third year teacher like me but does not like any type of change that could "disrupt" her routine or lesson planning. It took a lot of convincing to get her to agree to departmentalization next year. I never thought about integrating blogging with the other teachers. I will definitely ask the science teacher if she would like to blog as well which would give the students twice as many chances to increase their technology skills, grammar and spelling skills, and collaboration skills.
Thank you for your comment!
Rebecca,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment! I do truly feel that the students would enjoy blogging with the other classes. I do not feel that blogging would be difficult to incorporate into my weekly lesson plans. Every Monday, I would introduce a new question to the blog about what we learned last week or what we will be learning this week. After the first month of school, I would expect my students to be able to blog on their own and not have to take a whole class period to let them blog. Most of them have computers at home that they could access the blog there. For those students who do not have computer access at home, they could use their free time to get on the classroom computers to blog.
In regard to your question about expanding my blogging experiences outside of the classroom, I have started my own blog for my husband and I about the experiences of parenting. I'm not sure if this is what you mean by that question or if you are talking about having my students blog about non-classroom related issues.
Carrie,
ReplyDeleteDon't give up the fight for technology. I just had a meeting with our technology department this afternoon. I am working for them this summer and I found out what all we are installing with new computers for the high school, wireless laptop carts, printers, new video conferencing software. The change is coming in the horizon for my school corporation and it sounds like it is for yours. Keep me posted over our courses of how your success as I will with mine technological endeavors.