Thursday, August 9, 2012
Blogging and teaching
It took me a while to decide to use blogging for teaching. My major fear was that English as my second language I may have some grammatical mistakes and the whole word will see it! I would need someone to proofread my posts every time I write something. Let's face it, I don't have a proofreader 24/7. I have to overcome my own fears. Other teachers have different fears, such as the fear of talking to a larger audience is one. Another is the fear that someone can use their words against she or him or and try to sue them.However, because teachers want to motivate their students to learn in different ways, I believe those fears go away when they learn the benefits of blogging. When we read our students postings and we see how they develop critical thinking while writing their ideas, opinions and answering other people blogs. The rewards of seeing this effect will overcome any fears that you may have with blogging. One of my favorite teacher blogger is my former student E. she took the blogging for teaching to another level! I actually got ideas from her. She has created a database of her students work! Very valuable.
What can you blog? Well, you can blog just about anything or a specific topic. Blogs are useful and and bloggers provide valuable information from it. For example, I am in Disney world right now.. Yes, I am sitting in front of a pool blogging! Before coming here I talked with my fellow blogger RB, a professor who blogs about Disney. He gave me so many tips, such as download apps to check waiting times in the lines. Fabolous! I have saved time, that I can use for to write this blogging! And you? Do you have a blog? How do you use it?
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My blog is for students in my chemistry class. I thought the best way for me to use a blog would be to summarize different lessons, talk about the importance of them (real world applications), or just help the students with their work in general by asking or answering questions. The topic of this post is Boyle’s Law, which is the same topic that I did the instructional video on. I liked the idea of keeping it all about the same lesson.
ReplyDeleteHere is the link: http://houdechemistry.edublogs.org/
To comment, just scroll to the bottom of the post and click on “Comments.” You will have to enter your name and email address before you submit it. Also, don’t feel the need to answer the question I present at the end, just let me know what you think!
Love it. I already post my comment. You are a very good teacher.
DeleteI have always heard about blogging, never really knew exactly what it was, and so I never thought about how I could use it in the classroom. Even though I understand it more now, I have to say I was still hesitant at first. Because most of the people I work with do not use a blog (or at least that I know of), I have never really seen one in action firsthand. It may be a lot of work to keep up, to keep it motivating and relevant, but I do see the potential benefits of it. The biggest one in my opinion is that it provides a means of communication for those students who are reluctant to participate and ask questions in class. I think it would be a great way to see a side of many students that may not be evident in the classroom, or hear what they have to contribute to a discussion. In addition, blogging provides students with an opportunity to strengthen their writing skills, something that I think they could use more of, at least in science. I think it will be interesting to see how education will be affected by these new approaches.
ReplyDeleteI think it is matter of being creative and gather ideas of what works for each person. Check out ER, she was a former student of mine, and she has use a lot her blog for teaching.
Deletehttp://robilottasclass.blogspot.com/
A while ago I thought I would start a blog, but I didn't think I would have anything of value to share. Now that I am taking this course I realize that I do have things to say that others may relate to. I am excited to be able to have the guidance of your expertise to create and begin this experience.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to reading your blog.....I think you have a lot to share!
DeleteWho would have thought what an eye opening idea this is? As I navigate through the different tutorials you can't help but think of the many endless possibilities that having a blog can help with. I have been searching around through your blog and others throughout the site and find it amazing to see the amount of details and many perspectives people have on social and educational topics.
ReplyDeleteFor my blog I focused on my Social Studies setting and talking about the ideaology of the term Manifest Destiny. With such a unique term it has the possibilites to generate wonderful opinions and ideas to its meaning while having the blog can help direct and maintain that the conversations or discussions stay on task by monitoring it as well.
Check out my blog and let me know what you think of it for a 1st go around.
http://rickshistoryclass.blogspot.com/
That's a very provocative topic. When I read your blog, I was thinking ...what? and what about the native americans? Now I want to learn more.
DeleteBy the way check out the blog of ER, she was a former student of mine, and she is using her blog in a regular basis: http://robilottasclass.blogspot.com/
While reading “When Young Teachers Go Wild on the Web,” I couldn’t help but think that we are always hearing or reading about these types of stories. I can understand the reasoning of people who feel like their professional life and their private/social life are separate, so one should not impact the other, but the extremes that this mentality is taken to is beyond my understanding. Young or not, a person with common sense should realize that some of the pictures or written messages that were mentioned in the article would not go over well with employers. I remember when I was hired at Wantagh, one of the first things I was told was that I should never go to Mulcahy’s (a popular bar in Wantagh) again. This really didn’t bother me at all, because to me it was more important that I was not perceived by my student’s parents, my employers, etc. as an immature child who didn’t have her priorities in order. My kids always ask me if I have a Twitter account or a Facebook page (which I have neither), and they want to know why I won’t make one. And that is the exact reason I don’t, because I know they will look me up. I don’t even enjoy running into them in a restaurant or mall, I don’t need them to be searching through personal pictures (because I don’t trust the idea of setting accounts to private)! Whether a teacher agrees or disagrees, they really need to be aware of what they are doing because schools will not want to hear his or her reasoning if they start getting complaints. I think it’s very possible to live your life and still be a respected professional.
ReplyDeleteI agree and thought the same thing about the reading. Throughout my time here at Dowling so many professors have indicated that using social media has its pros and cons. However the Cons really tip the scale when it comes to your personal info. Keeping your professional and social life seperate has always been a practice in business and in other fuctions in differnet careers. I think more importantly with education keeping your personal life and your personal opinions should have a huge distance between them. Students and kids these days are very savy with techonolgy and something you thought may have be approiate at the time may not be in months or years to come. Even if you thought you removed it there are plenty of sites with cached memory that can dig things up. In my opinion after reading through it, its better to be safe than sorry. I also do not have any social media accounts like myspace,FB, or twitter. I can really thank the staff at Dowling for that as they really open my eyes as well as others to be wary of what you show and put out there. And instead of worrying what your post or picture may trigger just don't open the accounts and you won't have anything to worry about. The students look up to you as a teacher and as a role model and my goal is to keep it that way.
ReplyDeleteHere is the link to my website: http://lorihoude.wix.com/chemistry
ReplyDeleteIt contains a few different pages. The home page has the “about me” section, as well as contact information and extra help information. Course information contains links to expectations, grading policy, and a course outline. Under announcements there is a calendar for important dates, as well as a link to homework assignments. The content page has a link to the review book pages being used, extra copies of all handouts, videos/animations, and lab information, such as the list of labs completed and downloadable lab reports. The blog page contains links to two different blogs, one for student discussion and a different one for parent communication. The links page has a list of different websites that students might find helpful, and the in the news page contains various articles in the news that involve chemistry. I hope you enjoy looking through my website!
Lori,
DeleteI ca see you are ready to go for the first day of classess. It would be interesting to see how parents will react to the blog. Hope they participate frequently. Good job. Let me us know how it goes!
***This is a repost of what was submitted earlier in the week to your blog. Not sure if its my Mac or blogspot as this issue keeps happening with posts showing and then disappearing or not staying posted. Ugh either way its stamped in blackboard. I sincerely appologize for any issues this may have caused***
ReplyDeleteAuthor:Rick
Posted Date:Thursday, August 23, 2012 10:12:43 PM EDT
Edited Date:Thursday, August 23, 2012 10:12:43 PM EDTTotal
"Attached is the link to my website amblininfo.wix.com/socialstudies
My site is geared towards a middle school Social Studies class environment. It consists of a handful of direct and clear pages that indicate what is expected and the content on each page supplies direct links so students and parents do not have to sift through website data.
My homepage is there to welcome and provide a direct avenue to see what homework is due for that week. This way with it being on the main page there are no if ands or buts about where its at or they didn't have a copy of the worksheets as pdfs will be provided directly on that main page. It also includes a webquest page this will provide an avenue for students to learn about the process and eventually lesson material in the future.
The about us tab contains information about myself with some of my interests and personal goals along with a link to the school that provides additional information they may want or need. This also provides an avenue for "parent communication" via the use of Jupiter Grades. I highly recommend using this site as it is an amazing tool for parents to track progress and allow them to also communicate directly with me as a teacher.
My links tab contains credible and reliable source data from websites like PBS, History Channel, also the district dept website path.
The Team Tab is my favorite place. I want everyone to feel like they are part of the class and the team. So in this tab I have placed the my blog for the students in the class to communicate about lesson material, questions, and class discussions. I have also included an events calendar column that lists the upcoming events relate to history or class field trips. And finally it includes the video section which is in plain view for parents to view content material as well to help setup of future class lesson material.
The contact tab is a clear and direct form that will allow a parent or student email me directly by filling out a general form along with providing info for phone contact information for me directly or the school.
I can't believe how far it came from initial idea to actually having a functioning website. I look forward to building it more as I move forward with my teaching career.
Thanks and hope you find my website interesting.
-Rick
Rick
DeleteWhat a great website. I love it. It looks so professional and easy to navigate. You are ready to go and begin teaching!...your site is informative, and age appropriate. Very inviting to students and parents.
Congratulations.