I teach in a large middle school. Each grade level is divided into three different teams of about 100-140 students (depending on the number of teachers). I work very closely with the other social studies teachers in my grade level, however, and we create projects and lessons together. As a department, I would like to set up a social studies blog containing videos, webquests, and other resources we all use. This would benefit the teachers, but also the students, as they would all have access to the same materials. It would be convenient for students who have been absent as well, as they would be able to visit the blog at their convenience to view videos or complete other activites they may have missed. While my eventual goal is to have a grade-level blog, I will start small and work towards this goal.
Blogging is a way we could allow our students to interact with students from other teams. I would like to see students from my class post their work (videos, PowerPoints, etc.) for students from the other teams to view and comment on. A grade level social studies blog could become a very interactive tool, with students commenting on other students' work and hopefully learning new things or looking at material in different ways. A social studies blog would encourage discussion and interaction amongst students, and also hopefully increase interest in social studies.
Before extending this to the entire grade, though, I will practice blogging with my students and hopefully begin by allowing them to respond to discussion questions, links, or videos. Once they are comfortable with this, smaller groups of students can then create their own posts relating to the topics we study. It will be very important for me to make my expectations clear to my students and spend time teaching them the process of blogging (Richardson, 2010). I am really looking forward to the possibilities that lie ahead with blogging and am excited to have my students become experienced social studies bloggers.
References
Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin
I too teach at a large middle school. I teach 7th grade science and I completely agree that planning with the other two science teachers is a great asset. When you put three highly qualified teacher's minds together the engaging lessons you can produce are endless. Students who miss a lot of school can negatively effect their success in your class. By posting you assignments and resources on your blogs students will always be able to be connected to what is going on in your class. This way the student does not fall behind. Posting student work and allowing other students on different teams to comment on it would be an excellent learning resource. Students would get to hear comments and critiques from students who they do not sit in class with everyday. This is a great way to increase communication between all seventh grade students.
ReplyDeleteStudents that are less advanced would have a problem with assessing your blog and keeping up. I suggest pairing them with another student.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like a great idea! I'm sure the students would enjoy it. Having the whole seventh grade on one blog could be time consuming to keep a watch on for safety reasons. I would suggest that different teachers have a section to monitor so that students are not posting something that should not be posted to other students.
ReplyDeleteI also wanted to add to the personal safety measures, that there are guidelines to follow for keeping children safe on the Web. You can find these guidelines in Chapter 6, “Expanding the Boundaries: Blogs, RSS, Podcasts, and Wikis”(November ,2008)
ReplyDeleteAngee,
ReplyDeletePairing students is a good idea for ensuring that all students can particpate properly with a blog.
Janie,
Student safety is extremely important! Before beginning to have my students blog, guidelines for safety would need to be established.
I think I would also use a blog as a way for a department or grade level teachers to combine their resources and be able to reach students and families with information. We have been talking as a district about ways to share activities and interactive white board resources, and blogs would be a great, free way to do that and it would be easier than having a website with just a couple of people being able to access it to add information.
ReplyDeleteWhen you practice and teach your students how to use the blog, will you practice with the content area, or would you start with something outside of the content to get them used to blogging and communicating with each other?
Emily Million