The first day of the Technology Advanced Institute really got me thinking. Reviewing Microsoft Word and Powerpoint was useful. I probably wasted a lot of time worrying about putting music on Powerpoint. It's something I'd like to do, but it's certianly not imperative. Now that I think about it, working with it the "old way" is fine. I'll keep working at how to make that work for me, but it's not a big deal.
What really got my mind working was the blog, though. It's a new thing for me. I've always done a lot of writing, but have been writing more especially since my Summer Institute in 2005. This writing has been both personal and work-related. I've done a lot of work writing for my classes and for my church. On the personal side, I've done a lot of writing, too. What I think is cool about the blog is that this personal writing could have an audience and possibly get some feedback.
On the way here, I was thinking about a writing group I started at my church. We meet on Sundays and share devotions we wrote about passages in the Bible. This past spring we put together a devotional book which we distributed. (Who knows if anyone really read it, although we did get some feedback which was positive.) Anyway, I was thinking, wouldn't it be cool if we could post our devotions on a blog each week. We'd be breaking new ground with our writing and have a posible audience and community who could respond with their writing.
As for my classroom, I think a blog would be useful. Having my students work on blogs might be a good way to get writing practice in. I'll have to think about how that would be done, though. As for a teacher blog, I doubt if I could keep it up everyday, but connecting it to a website would be cool. I'm looking forward to learning more new things today. I feel like a sponge. :)
You had so many great ideas about how to use this blog thing - I will be glad if I can simply remember how to do it. Then when I feel comfortable, I will try it with my class. With only 8 students, there isn't the need to keep in touch with each other this way, but anything that keeps them writing (with an audience) is worth trying. Thanks for the ideas.
ReplyDeleteYou have some great ideas for this blog and what blogs can do! The possibilities are endless! I really like the Church idea - maybe create a communal username and password so that each week someone gets to be the discussion leader and everyone gets to write comments before you all convene (kind of what we are doing right now). That sounds cool!
ReplyDeleteAnd don't worry about doing things "the old way." Working with technology is not just about memorizing keystrokes, it's a way of thinking. How you construct your thoughts and reveal them to the class might never change, but the technology you use to do so, does - and that's ok!
If you want your students to use blogs, that would be great. Remember, you can hide them from search engines and make them private so only those invited can see them - I think if you offer them that level of privacy it might be more enticing to them and their parents!
ps - glad to have you here in AI!!!