I went on another search today for blogs that are being used effectively by teachers to engage students in activities that help them learn. I tried different key words this time–student blogs. One of the first sites to come up on Google was Pace University’s (NYC) page for student blogs. My first reaction was to skip right past it because it was college kids rather than middle school. But then a picture flashed through my brain of when we used to take our students over to Bowdoin College for a tour. We knew that a lot of our students had never been on a college campus, let alone considered going to one. We wanted them to at least start to build a picture of what college “looked” like. The boys’ faces lit up when we toured a dorm and a young woman exited the bathroom in just a towel–the boys were thinking at that moment that college was looking pretty good. But I digress…the mind flash of our tour of Bowdoin started me thinking about virtual campus tours and that student blogs might be part of such a tour. From there I started to mentally design an interdisciplinary unit that could be used in advisory or as a one-day special event where the only thing we explore that day was what college was all about and why would anyone consider signing on for 4 more years of school. The Pace blogs give us a peak at college life–hard work for sure. However the blogs also show how students are involved with philanthropy, being introduced to new forms of recreation (Russian martial arts), trying to figure out how to deal with stress, and experiencing life abroad. I’m pretty sure the student blogs about life in college would be more interesting to middle and high school students than catalogs, speakers with charts showing how much more money over a lifetime college grads make, or lists of skills needed to succeed in college. College ready is a phrase used a lot these days, and schools are working hard to encourage students to take studying seriously and enroll in college-prep courses. We need to help students figure out why they might want to be college ready when they graduate (or even stay in school long enough to graduate) as well as ramp up their academic experiences. College student blogs offer our ms and hs students a window to peer through to find out what the college experience is really like–some might just become intrigued. Google student blogs or college student blogs and blogs from around the country pop up–lots of good reading for discussion.
Still Questing for Interesting School Blogs
May 29th, 2008 by jill1000 · 1 Comment · Uncategorized
Tags: college ready·student blogs
Blog for science teachers & techno fiends
May 19th, 2008 by jill1000 · No Comments · Uncategorized
I’m still on my quest for blogs of interest to middle grades educators. I’ve found numerous ones that haven’t had a post in over a year. I’m guessing their originators had difficulty keeping up with posting regularly and their every day responsibilities. Figuring out how to balance life and Web 20 and social networking connections can become a daunting task. I think we all will need to think about balance , but that’s another blog.
Many of the blogs I found were outlines of class work and assignments. 24/7 access for students and parents, but only interesting to read if you are doing the same type of unit.
The blogs I find most interesting are the ones teachers use to share ideas and reflections. Here’s one written by a middle school science teacher: Post-its and Ponderings : A Middle School Science Teacher’s Thoughts on Science, Technology and Learning http://mytko.org/ Christine Mytko from San Francisco integrates technology into her lessons in ways that help her students internalize the concepts they are studying. In her blog she shares ideas that have made her lesson more effective. In one post she uses a really good analogy for the issue of bells and whistles, but weak content in many technology projects–cake and frosting. Really dry, tasteless cake really isn’t improved with frosting–it just hides the problem for a bit. She works with her students to really build a superior content cake so that the technology frosting enhances good thinking rather than disguising fluff.
Another aspect of her blog is to share new technology she is investigating. I’m not a science teacher, but I learned all about screencast software and am thinking I need a new Mac with Leopard so I can run ScreenFlow software to create even better presentations. If I were still in the classroom I could use it to create dynamic tutorials. Mytko shares her personal research on the latest techno wizardry and provides many resources that science teachers will find helpful. This blog is worth at least a visit!
Tags: middle school·mytko·science blog·ScreenFlow·technolgy blog
Interesting Use of Blogs by Middle School Folks
May 13th, 2008 by jill1000 · 1 Comment · Uncategorized
I went looking for examples of middle school blogs because I’m interested in how teachers are using them both with their classes or as ways to muse about their own questions and concerns. I found a list of some very interesting blogs at MiddleWeb. http://www.middleweb.com/mw/aaDiaries.html
Some of the blogs relate individual teacher experiences, others are more philosophical in nature, and still others are an integral part of the teacher’s curriculum and instruction.
Two posts I particularly enjoyed are related to Professional Learning Communities and their related issues. The first is at http://theknowingteam.blogspot.com/ and is titled “Underpants Gnomes.” It addresses the issue that PLCs are often described as data gathering/discussion generating groups that produce increased achievement. The author comments on the frustrating fact that the middle step of getting from data to increased achievement is often missing from school plans to implement PLCs. The point seems well taken as PLCs sweep the nation. I hear colleagues describe situations where “someone” has been to see the Dufours and with good intentions comes back to school ready to implement. Too often, it seems, the foundational work is not done with staff, and folks are simply corralled into a staff meeting and are expected to become a learning community. It reminds me of teaming, when 4 or 5 teachers are plopped together and told to become an interdisciplinary team without any support or framework. Ideas with great potential often never come to fruition because we don’t take the time to set a purpose, build prior knowledge, model the process, and give time for reflection. As my colleague, Chris Toy says, good leadership is just like good teaching–we need to model and reflect before we should expect transference.
The other blog with an interesting posting about PLC’s is the Tempered Radical http://teacherleaders.typepad.com/the_tempered_radical/
Bill Ferriter talks about asychronous conversations among teams and give 3 advantages to these online conversations:
1. Asynchronous conversations give individuals the freedom to participate in ongoing conversations at times that are convenient
2. Asynchronous conversations allow teachers to quickly and easily work with a large cohort of teachers as members of a learning community
3. Asynchronous conversations give teachers the ability to participate in a semi-anonymous, pressure-free setting
He also incorporates a Voice Thread feature into the post (http://voicethread.com/#home) that combines quotes and teacher questions about PLC’s. This post would make a really engaging text-based discussion for a staff meeting where they are reviewing their PLC process or considering implementing one.
Tags: asynchronous conversations·blogs·middle grades·middle school·PLCs·voice threads
Hello world!
May 12th, 2008 by jill1000 · 1 Comment · Uncategorized
Teaching is hard work. It is also complex work. With the advent of Web 2.0 tools, teachers now have access to the expertise of colleagues from around the world. Since I’ve always been a strategy junkie–I collect them like some folks used to collect Beanie Babies–I thought it might be fun to collect ideas for teaching and professional development by mining the web. The purpose of this blog will be to share what I find.
Hopefully I will also connect with others and expand my PLN. I just learned that a PLN is a Personal Learning Network–I already have one and I didn’t know it! I also belong to MiddleTalk, NMSA’s list serve, and I am experimenting with a wiki dedicated just to effective teaching strategies. http://greatstrategies.pbwiki.com/
I have experimented with blogs in the past when I taught Reading and Writing Across the Curriculum as a graduate course. The participants posted summaries of reading strategy try-outs. My hope was that the blog would become a resource for the teachers when the course was over, and also to generate a vibrant online discussion focusing on teaching reading and writing. On a scale of 1-10, I would rate the success of this blog at a 3 or 4. The main reason for its less than stellar results was that although I thought I knew what I was doing (I’m an experimenter), I didn’t. Furthermore, most of the participants knew even less. Also, I should have spent more class time making sure everyone was comfortable with this tool, but unfortuantely the blogging site was blocked most days. Therefore folks had to post from home and when there were problems we couldn’t problem solve together. You can visit this old blog at http://erl537.blogspot.com/. There were many more posts, but I can’t find them. Hopefully with this blog I will learn how to manage it better!
Sharing try-outs had always been a popular aspect of the course–in the distant past. If I were to teach the course again, I think I would keep the try-out discussion a face to face one, and reserve blogging for comments on readings, etc. As I’m experimenting with blogging, I spend a lot of time thinking about what aspects of the learning experience are best done face to face and which are enhanced by the opportunity for a larger audience.
Recently I observed a high school art teacher who was using blogs successfully. She scaffolded the use of the blog by teaching the students how to use it, how to reflect in a meaningful way on their own work, how to give cool and warm feedback on others’ compositions, and how to post beyond the schoolhouse walls. This visit really drove home the point that it’s not enough to turn students loose with WEB 2.0 tools and hope that they will write with more voice and purpose. Effective instructional practices need to accompany the use of these powerful tools, and sometimes I think that aspect of using Web 2.0 tools is not given enough attention.
The classroom blogs I have explored have been interesting. Obviously some teachers use blogs to give students and parents 24/7 access to class activities, expectations, and announcements. I especially enjoy the ones that the students create. If I still had my own classroom I think I might use blogs in the following ways:
–sharing and commenting SSR reading
–photo journal essays as a way of demonstrating knowledge
–posting questions for class discussion
–reading blogs online for a variety of purpose
–model of effective and non-effective writing
–one of the components of a unit on cyber-citizenship
Tags: instructional practice
