Today I spent some time with our LSTC discussing the ideas for using blogs in the classroom. The same problem kept arising. How do we allow our students to blog, and blog safely? She informed me that this has been a continuing problem at all the county meetings she attends. We want to use blogs, she says, but the county discourages us from doing so due to liability issues. She told me that there are certain blog sites that allow for an adminstrator to check all posts and comments before they are allowed to be posted on the blog, and that this is the only way we could possibly use this wondeful asset in the classroom. This is a bit discouraging because honestly, who has the time to check every posting and every comment that comes through the blogs of the 120 students I teach?
All that aside, I would really like to use blogs. I belive that we could incorporate them into the classroom in many ways. I could possibly make it an alternative way of communication between the students and myself. Maybe students would feel more comfortable asking questions when not faced with, well, face to face contact.
Perhaps we can use blogs in the classroom to allow students to show what they understand in a more creative way. They can post their comments and thoughts on subjects and other students can respond.
In my school, students are required to create a portfolio with artifacts from each subject along with rational about their material. I really think that a blog would be a great place to do this. At the moment, we have trouble maintaining the paper portfolios for each student because it winds up being a lot of material, along with a lot of work for the teachers having to shuffle folders between themselves. We do have the electronic option, but as computers do, we often have crashes and all of the students work is lost. On top of the frequent loss, maintaining 1000 students work can be overwhelming for both the system and the system maintainer. How wonderful would it be to blog this material?! Students could scan their material and then blog their responses. The reviewers could then make comments and post their ideas on that information. The more I talk about it, the more it totally seems to make sense!!! The blog would never "disappear" and could follow the student all the way to college! I love this idea and can't wait to share it with my administrators.
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Do you see any problem with scanning material to the blog? I know that scanning things can be difficult. How would you handle it?
ReplyDeleteArielle,
ReplyDeleteGood luck with your administrators! I experience the same difficulty. Administrators feel too great a responsibility, in my opinion, almost more than anyone can take. In all professions there are professionals and apprentices that make poor judgements in the learning process and, at times, well beyond it. Nonetheless, they soldier on. I am not sure how to overcome the obstacle, as it were in the public school arena....
Perhaps your strategy of providing benefits that outweigh the concerns will work, and I sure hope it does! I, too, love the portfolio idea, as well as the ability to respond to current events, as I am a teacher of social studies!
I hope to someday read good news of your quest for authorized use, as well as report my own success!
Eva Kaminski
I also asked my LSTC about the situation of using blogs in the classroom and he said that our principal has to give permission to the teachers to use even the blogs that teachers can check the postings of students before hand. I know for a fact that another teacher I know has gotten onto the Hamas website at school, but it is a big problem using blogs? I just don't get it.
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean about having to moniter the blog. Many students would use it correctly while you would have a handful that would use it as a playground to post inappropriate comments. However, is there not a function on the blog page where the teacher would have to approve posts before they are viewed by everyone?
ReplyDeleteI agree with all of you. There will always be a bit of misuse, but how else can we both teach and learn? There is certainly misuse OUTSIDE the classroom.
ReplyDeleteFor that matter, where I teach, we have district-wide restrictions on teacher's use of email even. The concern is the same - possible misuse. It boggles my mind.
In the corporate world, HR departments and management have standard ways of dealing with any misuse or disciplinary concerns. Why don't we forge ahead, and deal with management and human resource issues in the same manner in education???
Arielle,
ReplyDeleteConsidering that the use of technology in education is growing at an exponential rate, schools are going to be forced to become more updated technologically to keep their students completive. Therefore, I would keep pressing toward your goals.
You spoke of loosing student data due to computer crashes, you may want to require jump drive or memory stick back ups for each student's work.
Bonnie
Arielle! I think the idea of a blog as a portfolio is genius! I totally wish I could have done that in college as I was completing the monster of a book that now only takes up space and collects dust on a shelf! Do you think you would have to give some training - although probably minor - to the students and the reviewers? Are you afraid that some reviewers maybe apprehensive about having digital portfolios? Hopefully a invitiation to the digital realm would be accepted by all!
ReplyDelete