Personal Online Journals=Inspired Classroom Tool

Personal Online Journals=Inspired Classroom Tool

The Article “Blog On”, introduces the idea of utilizing Blogs in a school setting. As stated by the author; typically blogs are seen as personal online journals which elicit commentary and responses on the topic in which the writer writes about. Blogging is a great way to infuse technology into the realm of Language Arts. It encourages critical thinking and expression from students, teachers and parents.

In older grades individual  blogging is seen to be most effective. While in the k-8 grades classrooms blog pages seem to work best. This article focuses on that age group. Teacher Catherine Poling notes that this type of collaborative blogging ties in nicely with the analysis of books the children read. Classroom blogs put the teacher in the back seat and allows students to comment on other students communicated ideas and thought processes. The student then learn from one another and then get inspired to generate great pieces of online works at the same time learning digital citizenship as they comment on these works. She also states that collaborative blogs wherein different classrooms interact with each other prove to be beneficial as well. For example; a 4^th grade classroom can be paired with a high school classroom. The older students act as mentors to the younger ones through a productive online discussion based setting. In Ms. Polings school they utilized a combination of face to face interaction with the collaborative blogging wherein 2^nd graders were paired up with 3^rd grade classes from the same school. The feedback she received from her students was that their excitement in idea sharing grew higher each time a new set of children were injected into their blog system.

She as well touched on staff development blogging. During the day most teachers are segregated from one another and their communication between one another is left to face to face interaction in the lounge or staff development meetings. She states that in her experience teachers express that this communication just isn’t enough to encourage ongoing staff cohesiveness and development. Setting up staff blogging networks allowed the teachers to share ideas and inspire one another in a consistent yet convenient manner.

The background of Ms. Polling is based on her experience as an elementary teacher. These experiences led her to focus on the k-8 levels specifically with limited noting on the high school level. I would have like to have seen more expansion on the topic of older grades and younger grades and how their collaborative blogging helped the older students. Did it increase their sense of responsibility in their online prowess? Did engaging and mentoring of the older students increase their school work and their enthusiasm? I plan on teaching high school and despite the focus on this article being from an lower grade perspective, I took several positive ideas from the piece.

I really love the idea of pairing up children from different age groups and schools. Perhaps at the high school level districts could reach out to local community colleges and inject them as blogging mentors to the high school students. This indeed could encourage many whom never thought of going to college to do so based on their positive online mentoring experiences. I as well like the idea she shared with high school grades being paired with lower grades. This could be very effective for middle school grades. Many middle school students see high school as a potentially scary step. Blogging with high schools could personalize the high school population and put many middle school students at ease. Moreover, it will give high school students a greater sense of responsibility to the world around them by inspiring and connecting with others. 

Beyond the emotional quotient aspect to these blogs, I as well see a valid academic use for the older grades as well. Most high school students roam in cliques. They rarely step outside their circle of friends unless there is an assigned group project. Online blogging would allow virtual sharing of ideas and connecting with other students they normally would never talk to. This opens up and encourages academic ability diversity. They would learn from one another and teach one another. Strong writers would be able to set good examples to those who are less captivated by expressing their thoughts in writing. This in turn I believe will in turn increase critical thinking as well as writing skills. In some cases these blogs could bring about respectful online debates. Academically this will prepare high school students for the emergence of online classes at the college level. These blogs will fine tune their communication ability and create a skill set that will allow them to be very effective in online class settings.

The idea that crossed my mind when reading this is perhaps for the older grades these blogs be opened up to the parents as well? I think it would be great for parents to see what their children have created and how their thought process works. In essence it may allow them a window into what their child is learning and how they are growing mentally. Also I think it would be very cool to connect a United States high school class with one from a different country. They could blog, respond and debate topics that affect everyone in the world. They could learn from one another greatly.

In closing, I very much enjoyed this article and it gave me many ideas in how I can utilize the art of blogging in my future classroom. As a reference to my fellow future and current teachers; here is a great resource worth checking out:http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/tech/tech217.shtml

Reference:
Polling, C. (2005, March). Blog On. Learning and Leading withTechnology [Electronic version]. International Society for Technology Education, 32(6), 12-15.

USING THE NETS-T/ ISTE Standards to promote teacher technological fluency

The International Society for Technology in Education have set up a series of standards and performance indicators for teachers when it comes to utilizing technology in the classroom. Teachers need to be proficient, knowledgeable, engaging and model how to effectively utilize educational technology. One of the main goals/standards is: Facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity. I feel that this standard is the most important because it relates to not only the technology but also lends itself to the importance of the teacher-student relationship in a direct manner through modeling, engaging and encouraging students.

In order to facilitate and inspire effective learning and creativity a teacher must have a good grasp on the subject matter in which they are teaching. They must also be able to utilize technological tools to advance the success of students in both a face to face and virtual environment. Teachers via example must model and encourage out of the box thinking, collaborative thought processes that inspire learning with others and from others. They need to engage students in a way that encourages them to explore and come up with solutions to real-world problems. In turn he/she must be able to encourage self reflection using tools that promotes sharing of information and working together with their peers to think, plan and expand the creative process.  

All the standards set by the ISTE are important; I feel as though the standard “Facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity”, is the most important one and the one that ultimately will assist in deeper learning for not only the students but for teachers as well. With that said, it is a broad standard that may pose some challenges on how to actually implement this standard effectively. ISTE offers seminars and webinars that assist teachers in expanding their technological knowledge base in a way that coincides with the new Common Core Standards. https://www.iste.org/resources/product?id=3015 . As well ISTE has a very active blog site wherein educators expand on standards and share how they implement them http://connect.iste.org/connect/recentblogs. Monterey County in California has a website that breaks down how the standards work into the common core framework; https://sites.google.com/site/mcoeccss/home/technology.

One application that is very prominent in K-5 right now is “Minecraft.” This application encourages learning from other classmates, sharing designs in engineering solutions. My daughter actually utilizes this app outside of class with several other students and it’s quite fascinating how they are able to interact not only with face to face interaction as they compare what they have built but, they also communicate virtually. ISTE has an article mentioning this application: https://www.iste.org/explore/articleDetail?articleid=156. Another good application that can be utilized is Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/.  Goodreads is a social format wherein people review, create tests , bookmark and share thoughts on books with people from all over the world. In California Renaissance learning has a program called Accelerated Reader wherein schools are utilizing this system to text understanding and track reading level comprehension. Good Reads is a great resource for students wherein they can create and or take practice tests that will help them solidify what they read.

In closing this course and the exploration of the expectations of future and present teachers in the realm of technology is extremely important. With elementary students learning HTML etc…many have technological capabilities beyond their teachers. The NETS-T standards assist teachers and propel them forward so that they can be engaging and effective.

This  video depicts a cool new platform called Graphite that aids teachers in deciding what apps are good and trustworthy; all in one solid location.