Where does it fit in? The title of this blog is the question that I am currently grappling with in regards to technology. With all of the new advancements and the speed with which they are occurring, I have been left to wonder what is the best way to teach my students? What new pieces of technology should I be incorporating within my teaching? Will my students actually benefit from these new techniques and/or styles? Or, are some of these new advancements nothing more than the latest fad that will end up fading away just as quickly as they were designed?
One of these new tools that are available for teachers to use are weblogs, or their more popular moniker, blogs. As a fifth grade science and social studies teacher, I am left with the question of where do blogs fit within my curriculum? This spring, we will be learning about the American Revolution in social studies. One new form of technology that I plan on using within my classroom for that unit is essentially a 'choose your own adventure' type of experience that will allow students to go back in time. Mission US is a website that will allow students to become a character from Boston during the year of 1770. As the character of 'Nat Wheeler', students will have an opportunity to experience what it was like to live in Boston and experience the mood of the city leading up to the Revolution. Students will be able to make decisions and choose dialogue in regards to how they feel about the events that are happening around them. The experience of their character will be based on the decisions they make, thus, allowing each student to essentially experience a different story from their classmates.
While utilizing this website, I also plan on having my students blog about their experience. This blog would serve several purposes. First, it would allow students to express their thoughts as to what they are experiencing with their character. Are they happy with the apparent path that their character is on? What side do they end up on? Would they go back and choose differently based on where their character ended up? Do they agree with the path their character is on? Are they surprised by anything that has happened to their character? I will also use this blog to pose historical questions about events leading up to the Revolution. Asking students how they would react to other major events that led to the start of the Revolution based on what they have experienced with their character. Students will also have the opportunity to predict what they think their character will do next based on their experiences as well.
Even though that research has shown that blogs enhance both critical and analytical thinking in students, I do face a challenge with the implementation of this project (Richardson, 2010). Many new approaches or advancements for learning that are available on the Internet are blocked by my school district. Blogs are currently one of these blocked applications. Even though a blog may enhance the learning of my students and offer them an opportunity to collaborate with each other in terms of what they are learning, I will still need get 'permission' to use a site such as this. Either that, or have my students who are able to blog outside of school while they are at home. The problem with this approach is that not all of my students have a computer at home or access to the Internet. While blogs are a good way to promote creativity in a social environment, there are still many obstacles left for some of us to overcome with their acceptance.
Reference:
Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
Mission US: A Revolutionary Way to Learn History
http://www.mission-us.org/
I completely understand your challenge. There are websites at my school that are often blocked which are useful for teachers and students. We have a system set-up where we e-mail our administrator to unblock it for use. However, it takes time for this happen. Sometimes we want to get on that site right then. I wish our districts would trust us with a password to unblock the sites. They could even provide just a few teachers at that school with a password so we could contact them for unblocking. Hopefully they would be more prompt than an administrator.
ReplyDeleteOne suggestion I would give you is set-up a meeting with your school principal explaining the usefulness of blogs and your great idea of how to use it in the classroom. Richardson (2010) also suggests this explaining the more documentation and purposes you have for the blog the better. Make sure you inform the administrator of how you plan to keep students safe online and any other details you feel are relevant. Hopefully after this “presentation” your principal will understand it is not just fun blogging, but the students engaging in learning and communication. After this maybe the principal will automatically have the sites you need unblocked.
References
Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
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ReplyDeleteMichelle, I think you are on the right way, and you should not allow any impediment dampen your spirit now, without any doubt, blogging is a veritable tool of learning, the students who blog, will show more confidence, self reliant, and more organized. These are the tools they need for the future.
ReplyDeleteMany policy makers still remain prisoners to the perceived evils of social networking. No doubt, these evils are real, the dangers are there, (Thornburgh, 2010) but we cannot because of that refused to tap into the overwhelming benefits that these tools possess. It is like killing a child because the midwife is evil! What we and other stakeholders need to do is to find ways of mitigating the dangers of bloging in schools. The benefits of blogging outweigh whatever drawbacks we might perceive. Besides, these students engage in other equally dangerous behaviours outside the classroom, they way out is to educate students about the proper etiquette of blogging and practice and model safe blogging with them.
Another thing I like to tell you is to begin the campaign now and collaborate with other like minded teachers in your areas to press for what I will call “time to blog is now” movement, which will canvass and seek approval for blogging in the classroom for the sake of education. The best way to start this will be teachers to form learning community themselves, blogging about many concepts they teach their students, and even invite administrators to join the blogging movement, and model proper ways of blogging that promotes leaning in the school. This will be a stepping stone to launch the awareness and root for the un-banning of blogging in schools.
References
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2010). Program number 3: The third wave [DVD]. Understanding the impact of technology on education, work, and society. Baltimore, MD: Author.
Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful tools for classrooms (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
I think the way you are incoporating blogs into your social studies curriculum is awesome. How you are giving them roles within the Revolutionary War and having them blog as kind of like a journal seems really neat and much better than having them read chapters and have discussions about the experiences in the Revolutionary War.
ReplyDeleteI believe you should keep up with your passion to using blogging as a part of your curriculum. There will always be set backs when trying to do outstanding things to make it more engaging for students, but you need to keep pushing forward. If students can not access from home, hopefully you have back from your adminstration and you would be able to allow blogging during class time or computer time, and if needed you were able to access sites temporarly that were blocked. Believing in what you are teaching and the delivery in which you are giving it only makes you a stronger educator and with the passion and commitment to stand by it makes it that much easier to push through struggles.
The blogging experience tied in with the Revolutionary War is a great idea. Have you thought about having students create a blog that they could continue throughout the whole year? Perhaps they could play the role of a journalist travelling in a time machine and reporting to the future what they have seen. There are a couple movie clips you could show to get them thinking about this. The one that comes to my mind right away is Black Knight (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0265087/).
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Christa on the issue of trust when it comes to using the internet. As it is right now, teachers have the same rights and privileges as the students when it comes to using the internet. For me, this is becoming increasingly frustrating since I have to run to our building computer teacher, who is also our IT person as well, every time I want something downloaded. She understands my frustrations completely and says that things are supposed to be different next year in regards to our internet access. Guess I'll have to wait and see on that one...
ReplyDeleteI was talking to her this week and mentioned to her what I want to do with the blogs. She started shaking her head immediately and told me not to expect permissions for that one to get granted. She likes the idea of using them, but even she has to get clearance from the administrators when it comes to allowing us to access certain types of sites. My next step will be to talk to our building principal about my idea to see what he thinks of it. Then, if I still can't get access for the blogs, I may set them up for the students to access outside of school pending on what kind of response I get from my principal.
I like your idea Derek. I'll have to check that clip out to see how they have it set up. Thanks!
ReplyDelete