Blogging With Students
I have now used blogging as a strategy to work on my student’s writing skills. It seems as though the students are more motivated about their writing because their ideas are being posted on the web. After setting up edublogs accounts the students got to work blogging about their artistic inspirations and evolution as an artist. Next I had the students research an artist of their choice and blog their responses to the artists work. I tricked the students into writing, then gave them feedback about their writing. It is clear that blogging will be a useful tool to help my students improve their writing.
Lifelong Learning and Digital Footprints
The most recent class touched on the idea of being a lifelong learner, something that I believe is necessary to be an educator. The wiki newbie in the video explained that by using this new technology that she is not very familiar with she was able to have her students collaborate with a classroom halfway around the globe. This is not only amazing, but shows the importance of learning new technologies to teach children new concepts. Being a lifelong learner is essential to being a good teacher in my opinion. Children are constantly exposed to new things outside of the classroom, and it is our job as educators to keep up with the rapidly changing world. By using social collaborative learning tools such as wikis, teachers are drawing on the digital era that these students have grown up in, while educating students.
The blog search tools will be interesting to use. I really liked some of the art education blogs that were given as examples during class, and look forward to searching for blogs about some of my interests. With the election quickly coming, I will be checking out some political blogs to see what other people’s opinions are regarding the candidates. A classroom blog is something that I would love to use at my school, but due to the inequity of technology amongst my students, I would have to be careful about making an assignment out of it. Maybe an extra credit activity for students would work.
The digital footprint is something I have been thinking about for a while. As a new facebook member, I sometimes cannot believe the photos that people will post of themselves and others. I think that facebook is a wonderful social networking tool, but what if students, parents or administrators find pictures of one of their teachers with drinks in their hands? And, as the new ad campaign shows, just because you delete something, it does not mean its really gone. I can see the reason why facebook and my-space need to be regulated very closely by parents, and the adults that have pages. People need to be more conscious of what they post on the Internet, and who could be viewing the materials put there.
This post is dedicated to my late Grandmother – Patricia Meyers – you will always be one of the most influential women in my life, I will never forget the strenght you taught me.
