Blogging in the Classroom

Discuss the evaluation of students’ use of technology tools.

One thing that classroom teachers need to remember is that when digital tools are used as vessels for projects, the content and the technology standards should be both addressed and assessed. When lesson plans are written at the beginning of the unit, the assessment should be created immediately to reflect the knowledge that should be learned from the standard. One site that has helpful pre-made rubrics is found on Kathy Schrock’s webpage. Scroll to the bottom of the page to where it says “Multimedia Rubrics.”

Students will create a list of “essential questions” (20) that could form the basis of problem-based learning experience in your classroom or in the classrooms of teachers that you work with and will list possible student approaches to answering the questions. These questions should refer to relevant ISBE or ISTE standards.

In preparation for the ISATs, I want the fourth grade student to do an inquiry project that determines the best ways for students to retain information.  The end project should be some audio/visual or web created study guide to be used with their peers in their classroom. The following standards will be addressed:

Language Arts:

• 4A: Students who meet the standard can listen effectively in formal and informal situations.
• 4B: Students who meet the standard can speak effectively using language appropriate to the situation and audience.
• 5A: Students who meet the standard can locate, organize, and use information from various sources to answer questions, solve problems, and communicate ideas.
• 5C: Students who meet the standard can apply acquired information, concepts and ideas to communicate in a variety of formats.

Technology:

• 2B: Communicate information and ideas effectively to multiple audiences using a variety of media and formats.
• 4A: Identify and define authentic problems and significant questions for investigation.
• 4C: Collect and analyze data to identify solutions and/or make informed decisions.

Below are 20 essential questions that will guide our mini project:

1. What is the purpose of the ISAT?
2. What do the ISAT results indicate?
3. What determines “success” as a fourth grade student?
4. How are ISAT results an indicator of our success?
5. What is the teacher’s role in preparing students for the ISAT?
6. What is the student’s role in preparing students for the ISAT?
7. How can we support our peer’s preparedness for the test?
8. What are ways that people memorize information?
9. What are ways people retain concepts?
10. What emotions do students experience when preparing for tests?
11. How can students manage the emotions they feel?
12. How can we share our best test prep activity with our class?
13. How can we share our best test prep activity with other classes?
14. How can we influence other students to create their own study skills? 
15. How can we create a method for remembering math strategies?
16. How can we create a method for remembering reading strategies?
17. How can we create a method for remembering science concepts?
18. What do you think our results will be after viewing/experiencing our test prep method?
19. How can we measure the success of our ISAT prep method?
20. How can we archive our methods for subsequent years?

Should technology (computer skills, typing, software instruction, etc.) be taught as separate skills or as part of an integrated lesson?

Integrated! Its become a part of our life. A recent study found that children from 8 to 18 spend 7 hours and 38 minutes in front of media (TV, video games, computer, mp3 player, phone) every day. Students are multitaskers and can learn content and process at the same time. Teach tech integrated. They can handle it.

Worst Professional Development EVER!

No specific memory here. Honestly, most PDs I go to are boring. This is what makes them bad:

1. It is a lecture. This is just bad teaching. We are not all auditory learners. The presenter should never simply lecture.

2. It is too long. I heard there is an equation to calculate how long your audience can sit for one moment; it may only be as many minutes as how old the person is. So a 30 year old can sit for 30 minutes. Don’t make me sit for 90.

3. It is unprepared. Wasting people’s time with not having technology or materials or paperwork prepared is rude. Though I do understand that sometimes tech stuff goes awry, alternate solutions must be figured out ASAP.

4. It is not well paced. Spending long amounts of time on the front half of a workshop and rushing through the end again shows unprepardness, as well as cuts out useful information I will still like.

5. The audience is not allowed to talk. I firmly believe that no student is an empty vessel. Not allowing the audience during a PD to share their ideas, opinions, expertise is short-sighted and misses teachable moments.

Do 1-5 above, and I am putting your PD in the category of “Worst PD Ever!!”

The End.

Students who are participating in my AYV blog (see right bar) are required to regularly post reflections after major milestones of our media-making process. Sometimes I find getting the students to post to the blog is like pulling teeth. Even though the questions change, I regularly encounter eye rolling and sighing. I wonder if this is because they are struggling writers, are tired of the AYV project, or I am challenging them too much/too little.

I lean towards thinking that the students are not fond of writing to begin with, and that they don’t yet equate blogging to “real” writing. I find that students are not putting as much effort into their comments as they would to a paper-and-pencil reflection. Their responses are always short, very informal, and needing to be rewritten. I try to include pictures in my posts to make the assignments more interesting, but does anyone have suggestions to get students less resistant to continua, long-term blogging?

One issue that I encountered was receiving limited, choppy sentences from my 8th grade students in their comments. Two comments received by my students really bothered me. The question asked was, “1. If you didn’t attend the final presentation, why? 2. How do you think the students did without you?” The student wrote, “1. i was busy. 2. i think they did great.”

This nonchalance seemed like complete disregard for a project we worked on for two solid months. I decided to speak privately to discuss this with the student. As it turns out, the student and his mother had to take an emergency trip to the hospital for his grandmother and he didn’t feel comfortable sharing this in a blog. To me this showed foresight and an understanding of public versus private thoughts.

The first step of starting a blog with students is to outline rules of safely participating on a blog on the internet. Rules we discussed:

1. No last names. We need to discourage strangers searching for us on the internet.

2. No email addresses. Again, contact from strangers is unnecessary.

3. All comments should be written in complete sentences. Blogging should be considered another form of writing. No less formal, or less important.

Are there any other rules you use for your educational blogs?

I used this Common Craft Video to explain what blogging is. Do you have any other resources for students to introduce the concept of blogging to students?

The purpose of this blog is to document my experience as an educator blogging with students. The posts reflect a school-wide blogging project: Dumas WOW! In Action Blog and a small group blogging project: DTA Adobe Youth Voices Blog.

This blog will document my successes and challenges blogging with students to impact future implementation of blogs.