I picked up a book entitled Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. It is certainly a book that provided me with more than just learning about how to improve the use of blog or a wiki but provided with insight with how powerful these tools are for student learning. We talk about making authentic learning connections for students, and improving their critical thinking and writing skills. Well, blogging is truly a great tool for teachers to use in their classrooms. Since most districts have as a goal, the integration of 21st Century Skills, the use of blogging, wikis and podcasts as collaborative learning tools is the way to go. I know I have so much to learn but I am fascinated by the number of students and teachers who are using blogs to improve critical reading and writing skills. As a cruise through many of these blogs, I am impressed with student’s reflective thinking. In the planning stage at this time, it is my hope to work with a third grade teacher and her students and begin this collaborative experience with them.
On another note, we are beginning our discussion on summer reading lists for students. The town librarian met with the reading department and shared some information on what their summer theme would be and gave us some insight into parent requests. We will be asking our library media staff to provide us with suggestions and ideas to help us promote reading over the summer. We would love to have students have the ability to log into a site and list books they have finished reading. We are also thinking of an interactive way to have students work on math over the summer. Maybe a math blog per grade would work. It would be an interactive collaborative way for students to share their thinking and learning in the problem solving process.
4 comments:
Is there on-going PD on blogs and wikis in the district? I seem to have lost the connection with the technology PD offerings. Are they listed on a completely different website? If none are being offered, can you recommend websites that give an overview of these processes?
Thanks!
Actually there has been some PD on blogs and wikis at the high school. Mr. Miller, High School English Dept Head, has provided these inservices. We definitely could offer these in the future if there is an interest. I went to Bing and he provided a tutorial for me on blogging. Some sites are:
www.blogger.com;www.mahalo.com/How_to_Set_UP_a_Blog_for_Beginners and www.wetupablog.com. These are just a few. I will research the idea of some district wide PD and post it.
Good Luck.
Hi Mary, I'm glad to see there's more and more interest about using blogs and wikis in the classroom. I've experimented in the past years and, although there is definately a learning curve, I think the classroom results are worth it.
In conjunction with some of the PD I've done at the high school, I've set up a resource page (a wiki page, that is) with several helpful links to resources and other examples of blogs etc... Here is the address:
http://bhsenglish.wikispaces.com/bloggingresources
As this is a wiki page, if anyone would like to join it, please click "join" in the upper right corner. Once you join, you can add your own ideas and resources to the page. Good luck.
I wonder why we don't have any more technology PD like we used to with Wanda? I used to get a lot out of that and it helped with the CEU requirements I have. I amd at the elementary level and would be very interested in learning how to use blogs and pod casts in the classroom...I have never even heard of a wiki!
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