Is blogging a new way of seeing how to teach? TTT65 - 08.01.07
Posted by Paul Allison on August 6th, 2007
Blogging in the classroom isn’t an experiment anymore. It may still be new to many teachers, and we may still have plenty to learn about how to take the most advantage to this new genre, but many of us have been blogging with our students for several years now. We’ve grown more and more clear about why blogging in a social networking is central to our curricula, and we are more confident in the tools we can use to do this work.
One of the things we say to each other in this podcast is that this work is exciting because it has a history (and a theory) and a future. As schools begin again this fall, over a dozen teachers will be joining together to plan curriculum for two school-based social networks. Last year we started collecting together our plans on a wikispaces site, Elgg Plans. Our high school students’ work can be found on an elgg, Youth Voice and on another wikispaces site, Youth Wiki. Our middle school students’ blogs are on an elgg, the Personal Learning Space, that is a “walled garden.”
Can you imagine blogging with your students? Want to join us? We would welcome you, especially now! Please respond to this post. Let us know of your interest, and we’ll help you get started. Also, take a look at these Guidelines for Joining YouthVoices.net.
We’ll show you how we use James Beane’s “10 self and 10 world questions” to build curriculum with out students. (See this Trailfire for more information.) We plan to also mix in a healthy dose of Paulo Freire’s “generative words” and “generative themes.” (See a description of “generative themes that discusses images in a book, Brave New Schools. And find “generative” in the third chapter of Pedagogy of the Oppressed.) There’s also some business about Peter Elbow’s notions of freewriting and focused sentences, and so much more!
At the end of this podcast, Lee Baber shows how blogging has changed her way of teaching:
“I’m looking forward to this year. I feel like I understand now that in teaching my technology class, I need to start with this blog, and in joining with the other teachers in this space first, and fit my curriculum in around it. Because this is probably the most important skill that they’re ever going to leave my computer technology class with, which is how to work the same kind of thing that we do in our community. So I’m really excited about re-working my whole year, and laying this thing out to be more participatory and to be more on time with the lessons with everybody else…. This is going to be a new way of seeing how to teach this curriculum. Again, just first teach them how to put it into practice and build community and how to write in their blog spaces and join with these other students. Second, all these other standards will fit in to that. That is why we teach them. It’s life skills. It makes perfect sense. It’s just just not the way anyone teaches it now.”
Why would we make these kinds of changes, and invite you to do the same? In this podcast, Gail Desler answers:
“It’s nice that [this blogging] project has a history. It has a past. It has a future, and it just keeps building. And it really is about engaging kids, and using tools that have something to do with how they actually learn today.”
Please listen to this podcast, and consider joining us. Give your students a voice this year! Please express your interest or ask questions in the comments attached to this post.
August 7th, 2007 at 8:25 am
I have had several blogs for about a year now. I am a science resource teacher in Charles County Maryland. My goals this year are very web 2.0 based. I plan to use blogging, podcasts, wiki’s, and RSS feeds with my students to establish the base for new literacies in our classroom. My plans are also much more broad. I plan to transform our entire school district. Right now, our district is pushing technology, buying every piece of hardware, and having in-service training sessions for everything. They are still missing the point. Teachers and administrators think that using technology is… using an LCD Projector, or using a grade book in a database. They have not been exposed to the tool of publishing on the net. Most of them think the internet is a toy that their students use, and you cannot trust the information presented. Any ideas and information would be great!!
August 7th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
Hi A. Woody Delauder - Please join us in the next 3 weeks as we look at state supported virtual online libraries and the rich information that is available for our students and for all of us when we know how to find and use them.
August 10th, 2007 at 6:37 pm
Nice comment Woody and way to go Paul. This is very exciting stuff. I am currently the only teacher in my school doing most of this type of teaching — using Internet based content management systems, message boards, chat rooms, blogs, etc. I’m actually writing a book on the subject for a class I’m teaching to teachers. Hey Paul, let me know if you have something to add to it.
August 21st, 2007 at 7:12 am
I work for a small, private college where many of the faculty have been teaching the same way for way too many years. We have an interim president who is pushing for more student-centered teaching and for using technology in our teaching practices. Since we have a limited professional development budget, unlike Woody, we have to be creative about how we do faculty development (because just having the technology available does not mean they will use it). With that in mind, I am starting a technology learning circle (based on Wenger’s idea of communities of practice). I hope that others will see how we are learning and possibly create their own circles–or we will have approximately 10-12 mentors for next year. I hope to introduce them to the world of Web 2.0–however, some of them aren’t even really familiar with all that Web 1.0 had to offer. I’m not sure if you would be interested in working with higher education on your project, but…