The most important insight that I came away with after this week’s readings is that “students who might not comment in class feel freer to comment on a blog” (Echlin p.2). As an inclusion teacher, I often see the same students commenting in classes, and I suspect that the quieter students might appreciate an alternate means of sharing their thoughts through online posting on a teacher supported classroom blog. In “Blogging is History: Taking classroom Discussions Online”, Echlin discusses a blog that functioned as an online book group that his students were required to post comments on. This exercise was successful in that many students exceeded the minimum number of posts required due to their engagement in the activity.
Relevant to classroom blogs is the issue of blogs having value to all users. In “Discussing Blog Design in the 5th Grade”, the author explains an exercise in which she asked students to describe what features they find helpful and enjoy from their favorite websites. Having this information could help a teacher intelligently design a classroom blog that students would be more apt to use because it suits their preferences.
I have thought of several blog based exercises after reviewing our course readings. One that I would like to implement is requiring students to comment on a classroom blog. I feel that the “close” activity is a great summative assessment at the end of a lesson in which teachers get a chance to check for understanding after a particular skill is taught. Typically, I will use a paper “ticket to leave” for this purpose. I would like to experiment with using blog based commenting in order to check for understanding at the end of a lesson instead. I think that this could be done as a homework assignment in which students would respond to a teacher generated question, much like we do for our technology graduate course. By responding, students could express their thoughts, and share their ideas, understandings or questions regarding the concept at hand.
I also would like to incorporate ELA standards into the commenting. As stated in “How to Teach Commenting Skills” the teacher had students edit their comments for grammar, spelling and punctuation. This is a valuable alternative to traditional methods of teaching these skills. For students who do not have web access at home, they can comment on paper and then add their comment to the blog the following day in class. I also found value in this teacher’s lesson in which methods for writing quality posts are taught. I would like to teach a similar lesson in which I show examples of posts that address a question or fellow classmate’s post using content and reflection as compared to simple posts which are not reflective. Being required to compose thoughtful, reflective posts and consider and read other’s posts is a way to address and improve literacy skills.
The video slideshow “Why Let Our Students Blog" addressing many reasons why our students should blog including ownership, discussion, interaction, motivation and participation. I think that students participating in the form of making reflective posts to a classroom blog demands ownership, which I find to be a valuable quality for our students. Through commenting, students can take ownership of their thoughts and knowledge in relation to a particular topic.
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