Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Introduction of the classroom blog

Today I spent some time with each of my classes introducing and discussing the process and uses of a classroom blog. I was astounded to find most of my students had never heard of the word blog, nor had they created one. This was strange to me since (until that moment) I thought all 8th grade kids knew everything about technology that I do/did not. Yeah, me. Score one for the teach! Well, I informed them how much they have already used the gadgets I want them to become familiar with for homework. Most have visited YouTube, some posted videos there. Visiting to websites of their favorite band or movie star where people have written comments about or to those specified on the page helped to direct them to understanding what a blog is and will be for them.
After going over the advantages of having my help, much faster than remembering questions the following day, and the chance to collaborate with one another to do a homework assignment they can put online, without printing or writing anything to bring to class, they are hooked on the idea. I have already begun the structure and pages of my classroom blog and I am awaiting, impatiently, to receive permission to access the edublogs. org site at school. Ahh, darn firewalls! But, that is another blog totally!

2 comments:

  1. I think it is a great idea to have the students first looking at websites that are interesting to them such as youtube, it is a good way to hook them onto the idea and then take that and use the idea educationally. I am glad that it is working out so great for you!

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  2. I firmly believe I will have better reactions and dialog if I let them know the cool things blogs can do for them. I am already working on uploading videos from TeacherTube.com for the demonstrations I need them to view.

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