For this assignment I have asked myself to:
Write about how your opinions of blogging have changed since you started this course. Explain what you have learned and relate it specifically to using blogging as a tool in the classroom setting. Discuss this style of communication. What do you believe makes it effective for students.
Blogging is fluid. It is words in flux. Just when you think you've got it, it changes. When I started this course, I was unfamiliar. When asked to blog, I was set on completing a task, and every aspect of completion was new. I was distracted. After recieving nice comments from Dr. Strange, I "whoo-hooed." After receiving a comment from a more mature blogger, Denise Krebs, I explained to my kids, "It's like getting a sticker on your paper, and hanging it on the refrigerator." After a while, I began to understand how powerful it is. It is a new form of communication. Unlike writing a letter, blogging is immediate and global.
Even today, after reading Larry Ferlazzo's post, I am still discovering its uses. Students can be engaged and empowered through blogging. They can be impersonal and very personal. They can be accountable, creative, and insightful. Blogging will teach the power of words to communicate, to analyze, to correlate. It can teach in a way I cannot. Over these past six weeks, my views of blogging have changed. Now I see it as a legitimate force to take myself and my students to new learning experiences.
Obviously EDM310 is having an impact! That's what we hope for.
ReplyDeleteI have sent a link to this post out on Twitter and on Google+.
Thanks!
Blogging is important in this digital age and our children are born into it. A three years old child can work an ipad or iphone without much difficulties! So can you imaging them not to blog in their lives?
ReplyDeleteKim, I became aware of your post when I read it on Google +. If only more teachers could have a perspective changing event like you have had! Blogging as well as everything else that you have learned in Dr. Strange's class are very powerful tools in the classroom if they are used properly. I am very excited for you that you have found the spark that all teachers need to have when it comes to technology in the classroom.
ReplyDeleteI like your refrigerator analogy, but I often use a similar analogy to explain how blogging is really different for students than just turning in an assignment. Instead of the paper going on mom or grandma's fridge, the work is open for anybody to see.
ReplyDeleteI actually became friends with Dr. Strange because of blogging and met Martha through John. Not only does blogging help create conversations, it creates communities.
I'm very proud of you Kim! You've been willing to learn since the first day in EDM310 and look at how it is paying off. Look at all of the great educators you're connected to now!
ReplyDeletePS- And you earned a lot of stickers with this one:]
Great job on your post. I really enjoyed reading it and agreed on your thoughts about the benefits of blogging, keep up the great work.
ReplyDelete