What is the use of blogs in the modern classroom? This is a question that I have often asked myself over the past few years. Studying educational technology at Walden University has truely opened my eyes to the usefulness of this technology in the classroom. I teach Literature to 11th and 12th graders who are extremly interested in new forms of technology. With this in mind I would start integrating my blog for my Advanced Placement classes first.
In contemplating how to incorporate blogs into my classroom I was struck this week with an inspired idea. My Advanced Placement kids are in the middle of a literature project that incorporates daily reading responses. I could have each student create their own blog site through Google, and then the student would be required to post their daily reading responses electronically. The students could share their sites with each other and post comments and questions to their peers' responses. This would also help me with grading the reading responses because I could simply log on to each students' site and quickly view their work.
Using blogs in this way takes a very traditional literary assignment and makes it something new and interesting that the students could really get into. I hope to incorporate this new technology as soon as possible in my classes. Tell me what you think or are any of you doing something similar and does it work?
Mike,
ReplyDeleteDoes your school district have Moodle? If so what you want is easy to provide. It gives you ways to submit assignments electronically. You can also monitor your students and see how long they were in the program. You can post the assignement and grading rubrics along with lectures and links... It is a wonderful program that has a lot of possibilities.