Times are changing, meaning that children today are more technologically advanced than generations before them. Many kids spend their down time playing video games, surfing the net, or logging onto online personalized sites such as Myspace and Facebook. Because of this, I believe that it is essential to incorporate technology into teaching at every age group.
In David Warlick's blog entitled 2 Cents Worth, he speaks about how even if a child doesn't have a love for doing their schoolwork, technology can still be used effectively as a teaching strategy in his post, More on what Matters.... Blogging is a variation of something that most students do on a daily basis. They talk to friends via instant messaging, text messaging, and many other avenues; blogs are just another venue in which students can interact. Even if it is schoolwork, children can view the relationship that it has to their daily lives which makes this more exciting.
Even though Warlick is speaking about high-school-aged kids in his post, I believe that the same will apply for the younger age groups. When I was in elementary school, I was hardly using computers at all in my social life. In today's world, there are special sites made just for kids where even the young ones can play games and interact such as Disney and Club Penguin. Students will immediately be able to see similarities between the conversations they have online with their friends and the discussions they have in the classroom about their posts. Because of this, blogging can be used for almost any activity in school, especially when it comes to language arts. If a class is reading a book, students can create their own blog and write down their daily thoughts about what they read. This way, their peers can comment on their thoughts and talk about how their ideas differ. Not only will this increase literacy, but it will give students a fun way to stay organized, discuss topics in an educated manner, and give them a sense of ownership when they create a blog that is a space created completely for themselves.
Presentation
16 years ago
Hi Elizabeth!
ReplyDeleteI think the ideas you came up with for incorporating blogs into classrooms is great. All too often, teachers are scared to introduce new things like blogs to younger students for fear of them just not getting it. As educators, we must make it our goal to give students the benefit of the doubt and set standards high. I also like how you mentioned that they could be used peer-to-peer and compare ideas. Kids would love to see a website with their name and ideas. It would be great motivation to learn the material if they knew they were going to be discussing it on their blog!