These days, we can communicate non-verbally in an instant. People we have never met can read what we've written, and sometimes we can get to know them without ever seeing them or hearing their voice. Knowing how to use technology is vital today.
The emergence of email, social networking, blogs, and interactive websites has given teachers new examples of the importance of communication and communicating it properly. Without the benefit of body language, facial expression, or tone of voice, written communication must be done with utmost care. Writers must convey exactly what they are thinking with keystrokes. Punctuation, grammar usage, and spelling convey to the reader (and the world) just what you are thinking. One little email, Facebook update, or blog post can give the reader a good glimpse into what the writer is like, and it's important that the intentions are portrayed accurately.
As a teacher with a new blog, I've learned how important it is to impress upon students the importance of leaving accurate comments. I wish I would have seen Mrs. Yollis' class blog before I started my blog. I love how she's handled the comment section. Lessons learned!
I've tried having students submit book reviews to student sites like Spaghetti Book Club, but I've not had lasting success. It seems like the students didn't really want to write a review let alone look at any of the reviews that others have written. They weren't that inspired (I would like to try Story Tubes, however). Also, my school doesn't give out email addresses (at least not to elementary students), and email would be hard to monitor since it requires a password. Social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace are not accessible from any of our school computers. Finding a way to have students communicate in an email/social networking way might be difficult.
I have a new idea to try. Since motivation, socialization, and collaboration are all keys, I would like students to use Library Thing to communicate about books. Once students have entered their books (or even just search for a book), they can start to look at, read, and write some of the communications, called conversations, regarding that book. Students can see if others had the same thoughts as they did while reading the book. They can participate in reading response-type questions. All the while, proper punctuation, spelling, and content need to be understood for everyone's benefit. The downside to this is that you need to be a member of Library Thing (it's free), but it's another system where teachers don't have 100% control over and students will need a personal email.
These activities develop writing much in the way a blog does where writers have to be concise, accurate, and have something special to say.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
How can blogging be used by students and teachers?
Next to social networking sites, blogs might be all the rage these days. Everyone has something to say, and blogging is a great way to thoughts out to the world.
Both teachers and students can benefit from a blog. In a simple way, teachers can keep a classroom blog in a way similar to a weekly newsletter. Teachers, or even students, can summarize the week's events, give notices to upcoming items, and share useful information. Parents no longer have to tack a paper newsletter to the family bulletin board to remember information, and no one has to worry if an emailed newsletter gets deleted. Blogs can be an easily accessible diary of a classroom.
Blogs can have other uses as well. Mirror blogs and Reading Response blogs can include content discussed in class and go deeper. The author of the blog post, like the teacher, can ask a question that readers (likely students) can respond to. For example, when reading about the life of Benjamin Franklin, a blog post can ask the reader to decide which of Franklin's accomplishments was most important and why. Teachers can share what they are thinking as well. As an added benefit, readers can see all of the comments left by other readers/responders. Connections can be made, new questions can be posed, and new thinking can be generated.
Blogs can combine the newsletter, mirror, reading response and be a spot for students to showcase their work. The great thing about blogs is that they can be anything the author wants them to be at any moment. There can be one author or several authors. In a lot of cases, anyone can comment and be a part of that learning community. It's an easy, effective way to integrate technology with reading and writing skills.
Writing skills can develop using blogs. Content is king in blogs! Readers can easily leave the blog and move onto something else in a second, so capturing the audience is key. Authors of blogs have to think of main idea titles, catching beginnings, and perhaps insert appropriate images to help enhance the content of the blog. Typically, blogs are not meant to be lengthy, so summarizing skills are enhanced. Writing within length limits really forces the author to get word choices exact and narrow in on the main idea. Lastly, writing a blog post sharpens organization in writing.
What makes blogging different from other types of writing is that it can change. With traditional writing, once it's published and printed, it's difficult to change without calling it a new edition. Blog content can change (and even disappear) with the click of an "edit" button. Furthermore, the ability to have readers comment on the blog post can entice the author to change (or add to) a blog post. Comments can make the blog interactive and build a community of participators just from one blog post. People can follow the blog and receive updates, and blog authors can provide links to other places or documents online. Blog writing and reading is interactive in a new way. With good blogs, it' can be compared to paper publishing as 2-D and blog publishing is like 3-D.
Both teachers and students can benefit from a blog. In a simple way, teachers can keep a classroom blog in a way similar to a weekly newsletter. Teachers, or even students, can summarize the week's events, give notices to upcoming items, and share useful information. Parents no longer have to tack a paper newsletter to the family bulletin board to remember information, and no one has to worry if an emailed newsletter gets deleted. Blogs can be an easily accessible diary of a classroom.
Blogs can have other uses as well. Mirror blogs and Reading Response blogs can include content discussed in class and go deeper. The author of the blog post, like the teacher, can ask a question that readers (likely students) can respond to. For example, when reading about the life of Benjamin Franklin, a blog post can ask the reader to decide which of Franklin's accomplishments was most important and why. Teachers can share what they are thinking as well. As an added benefit, readers can see all of the comments left by other readers/responders. Connections can be made, new questions can be posed, and new thinking can be generated.
Blogs can combine the newsletter, mirror, reading response and be a spot for students to showcase their work. The great thing about blogs is that they can be anything the author wants them to be at any moment. There can be one author or several authors. In a lot of cases, anyone can comment and be a part of that learning community. It's an easy, effective way to integrate technology with reading and writing skills.
Writing skills can develop using blogs. Content is king in blogs! Readers can easily leave the blog and move onto something else in a second, so capturing the audience is key. Authors of blogs have to think of main idea titles, catching beginnings, and perhaps insert appropriate images to help enhance the content of the blog. Typically, blogs are not meant to be lengthy, so summarizing skills are enhanced. Writing within length limits really forces the author to get word choices exact and narrow in on the main idea. Lastly, writing a blog post sharpens organization in writing.
What makes blogging different from other types of writing is that it can change. With traditional writing, once it's published and printed, it's difficult to change without calling it a new edition. Blog content can change (and even disappear) with the click of an "edit" button. Furthermore, the ability to have readers comment on the blog post can entice the author to change (or add to) a blog post. Comments can make the blog interactive and build a community of participators just from one blog post. People can follow the blog and receive updates, and blog authors can provide links to other places or documents online. Blog writing and reading is interactive in a new way. With good blogs, it' can be compared to paper publishing as 2-D and blog publishing is like 3-D.
What are the issues and benefits of having students publish their writing on the internet?
Students publishing on the internet seems like an good and fun idea, right? There is a lot of research that shows that students are motivated to having their content displayed for others to see so publicly. People want to be acknowledged and use their voice, and publishing onto the internet is a great vehicle for that. In addition, using technology can encourage and enhance collaboration between writers, which is a good skill to have for 21st century learning.
But, I think that there can be difficulties. Mostly I write from my own experiences as a teacher, but I suspect I'm not alone. I have a classroom website (currently experiencing some technical difficulties), and I was so excited to have a place for students to showcase their work. I was proud of their accomplishments and I knew they were, too.
We had a few hiccups. For one, publishing with technology takes a lot of time for third graders. My school does have a computer lab in which each student can use their own computer, but we can only have it for an hour a week. From my experience, typing a piece in word can take a typical child almost two hours. That's two weeks of computer lab time doing nothing but typing.
Another problem we've run into is compatibility. I've had my students create their own webpages using Microsoft Word. They learned how to design and create hyperlinks. However, my website uses Microsoft Front Page. It was difficult to have links to the students' webpages (and other published works) using two different systems. My school doesn't have software to help both my students and I to be on the same page. I could have gone back and switched my website into a Word website, but I had already spent so much time doing it in FrontPage (and my district is having us all switch to a template this summer so I didn't want to do it a third time).
Although technology has come a long way, students can still have limits to technology access. As I wrote earlier, time can be one issue, but software programs can be expensive. Sometimes schools, mine included, cannot afford to buy a programs, subscriptions, or licences for all students to use.
Lastly, technology changes so much that it's difficult to keep up with the latest and greatest. For example, Front Page is pretty much not used any more and it's difficult to get support for that. My website is not that old, and already I'm forced to learn something new.
Any of these problems can give teachers a headache and wonder if it's all worth it. The good news is that as time goes by, technology is more and more common. Students come with a deeper background of keyboarding and word processing skills. Some terrific programs are available through the internet for free, so schools don't have to spend a lot of money that they don't have on more publishing programs. Also, the emergence of blogs and social networking sites have payed new avenues for reading and writing and other learning.
I've tried to keep up with the times. I've started my own classroom blog, which I'm hoping allows for easy student participation. Already I've had students comment on our blog (although we could still work on keyboarding skills). A colleague of mine, Renee White, was able to successfully get her students' creations on her website like student portfolios and digital science journals (she created her website in Word). Her class loves it!
But, I think that there can be difficulties. Mostly I write from my own experiences as a teacher, but I suspect I'm not alone. I have a classroom website (currently experiencing some technical difficulties), and I was so excited to have a place for students to showcase their work. I was proud of their accomplishments and I knew they were, too.
We had a few hiccups. For one, publishing with technology takes a lot of time for third graders. My school does have a computer lab in which each student can use their own computer, but we can only have it for an hour a week. From my experience, typing a piece in word can take a typical child almost two hours. That's two weeks of computer lab time doing nothing but typing.
Another problem we've run into is compatibility. I've had my students create their own webpages using Microsoft Word. They learned how to design and create hyperlinks. However, my website uses Microsoft Front Page. It was difficult to have links to the students' webpages (and other published works) using two different systems. My school doesn't have software to help both my students and I to be on the same page. I could have gone back and switched my website into a Word website, but I had already spent so much time doing it in FrontPage (and my district is having us all switch to a template this summer so I didn't want to do it a third time).
Although technology has come a long way, students can still have limits to technology access. As I wrote earlier, time can be one issue, but software programs can be expensive. Sometimes schools, mine included, cannot afford to buy a programs, subscriptions, or licences for all students to use.
Lastly, technology changes so much that it's difficult to keep up with the latest and greatest. For example, Front Page is pretty much not used any more and it's difficult to get support for that. My website is not that old, and already I'm forced to learn something new.
Any of these problems can give teachers a headache and wonder if it's all worth it. The good news is that as time goes by, technology is more and more common. Students come with a deeper background of keyboarding and word processing skills. Some terrific programs are available through the internet for free, so schools don't have to spend a lot of money that they don't have on more publishing programs. Also, the emergence of blogs and social networking sites have payed new avenues for reading and writing and other learning.
I've tried to keep up with the times. I've started my own classroom blog, which I'm hoping allows for easy student participation. Already I've had students comment on our blog (although we could still work on keyboarding skills). A colleague of mine, Renee White, was able to successfully get her students' creations on her website like student portfolios and digital science journals (she created her website in Word). Her class loves it!
How is the process of writing enhanced/affected by use of technology?
According to Gaining a New, Wider Audience: Publishing Student Work on the Internet by Rachel A. Karchmer, writing can be enhanced through technology for several reasons. For one, writers can experiement and publish pieces using different formats and multimedia. In turn, this can encourage and enhance creativity and individuality from authors. Technology can enhance the writer's motivation to write and publish using technology. The audience can be the entire world rather than just the teacher or the classmates. Grandparents, friends, and anyone with access to the internet can potentially find one's piece. My students are always excited to think that someone in Alaska can find our website or blog and see what we are doing and thinking. Lastly, Karchmer writes that students can sometimes revise easily with technology. I found this to be especially true with using the Carnegie Library's Storymaker. Storymaker gives writers prompts and even complete sentences. Previously I found writing with technology difficult to revise using stronger word choices or figurative languate. Programs like Storymaker help writers start with their ideas already typed out for them, so changes to enhance the writing are a lot easier.
However, if a writer isn't as familiar using the technology, he or she may be concentrating on the new medium more than focusing on the words or other content to include. I found that to be true for myself when we were creating the digital stories. In the article Beginning to Write with Word Processing: Integrating Writing Process and Technology in a Primary Classroom followed a classroom with different results. One teacher was amazed at how quickly technology know-how became evident. Learning technology while learning the writing process didn't seem to be too much for these students. However, learning keyboarding in addition to thinking of the words to write proved frustrating for writers. Rereading for clarity seemed to be happening more when students were using technology, but rereading for content seemed to happen more often with paper and pencil. Falling back on what one is used to is common. I wonder how much of an issue this will be in the future when technology becomes more common in classroom settings and more common to learners.
However, if a writer isn't as familiar using the technology, he or she may be concentrating on the new medium more than focusing on the words or other content to include. I found that to be true for myself when we were creating the digital stories. In the article Beginning to Write with Word Processing: Integrating Writing Process and Technology in a Primary Classroom followed a classroom with different results. One teacher was amazed at how quickly technology know-how became evident. Learning technology while learning the writing process didn't seem to be too much for these students. However, learning keyboarding in addition to thinking of the words to write proved frustrating for writers. Rereading for clarity seemed to be happening more when students were using technology, but rereading for content seemed to happen more often with paper and pencil. Falling back on what one is used to is common. I wonder how much of an issue this will be in the future when technology becomes more common in classroom settings and more common to learners.
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