Friday, May 15, 2009
How to use Blogs in the classroom
I think that blogs would be a wonderful tool in a classroom setting. I believe the most beneficial use would simply be for contact outside of the classroom. Having a blog set up for students to post to can act as another form of communication between students themselves, or a way for the students to reach the teacher. This could be used to talk about assignments, ask for help, or even post an idea for class. Teachers can also post a question and have students respond at some point during the week as a participation grade. This would get all students involved in the classroom and may even bring out the ideas of those that are shy or quiet in class. As a high school math teacher I could easily use a blog as a way to post the question of the week and have students discuss, share, and talk about ways to solve the problems. They can even post their answers and compare them to other students. This will allow for students to check their work with their peers, and may even foster discussion on different ways to complete the problem. Overall the blog could be a great tool for students to share their thoughts on mathematical topics.
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First off, I have to admit, sadly, mathematics is no longer one of my strongest attributes. I used to love it, but we have grown apart since my college days. I was wondering what kind of questions you would pose to encourage mathematical conversations--again, I may be terribly biased because of my relationship with math. I can imagine it would be difficult and possibly intimidating at first; how would you "break the ice" to get kids comfortable with talking math?
ReplyDeleteI am also a high school math teacher, and I have the some of the same visions for my blog. The challenge that I believe we will face is organization. It will be difficult to find a way to organize all of the capabilities of the blog, and still connect it to the classroom for grading purposes. A colleague of mine actually set up a few different blogs, where each one had a specific function. He made one for general discussion, one for questions/answers, one for journal entries, and one for graded assignments. While this organized the different types of information, it still seems like a lot of work to have to moderate all of the material that is on all of the blogs.
ReplyDeleteGetting students involved in any way is a good thing. I found that motivating the students is getting more and more difficult. They are becoming very jaded, but the students enjoy using technology and the computer is a good way to reach them. I think it will be a lot of work to set up blogs but once they get going it would be ok.
ReplyDeleteToo all,
ReplyDeleteI believe that a blog that deals with questioning would simply be for just those that either want help from other students or need help. It would just allow for them to talk to each other outside of class. This type of blog would have little for me to do other than check every so often to make sure there is something appropriate going on. The other type of blog I would like to do is pose a problem of the week, and give students this forum to talk about the problem. They would still have to submit something for me to grade by the end of the week, but this would just be a way to pose the question, and let the students discover the solution without help from me. If they need help from me they can also post that, but I am thinking more for students without much involvement from me.