Going Green? Try Blogging!

As a tenth grade World History, Intensive Reading, and an eleventh grade Introduction to Teaching teacher, the opportunities to utilize blogs in the classroom are many. Although I am going to take Will Richardson’s (2006) advice and start small, I would like to use blogs to create historical resource pages, as discussion boards, and for online student portfolios (p.44).

With my World History class, I would most like to create a resource page or “build a body of knowledge” similar to the online textbook and study guide created by Darren’s AP Calculus class mentioned in Web Literacy for Educators. While the students are learning information and posting it to a blog, they are also creating a learning resource for other students and a reference for their future studies (November, 2008, p.84). Throughout the year, my students do a significant amount of research on historical topics that should be seen as knowledge to share with others. Going beyond just blogging, I was also impressed by Will Richardson’s (2006) suggestion to create a similar type of resource using RSS (p.82). The ability to create a webpage by posting numerous links regarding a specific topic is mind-blowing.

I also teach and Intensive Reading through World History course where we read books and work on literacy skills through the topic of history. I would most likely use blogs as a discussion board with this class. I was influenced by the example presented by Will Richardson (2006), regarding a project undertaken by his class of eleventh and twelfth grade students. They were reading The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, and through their discussion postings, created a reader’s guide, along with having virtual discussions with the author herself (p.25). My students read Copper Sun by Sharon Draper every Spring as they learn about the Atlantic Slave Trade. What a wonderful way to have students discuss the reading, demonstrate comprehension skills, and create a resource for other readers of the book. In addition, Sharon Draper has done live book talks with our school in the past and I would definitely contact her to find out if she would like to become part of the discussion.

Finally, this will be my first year teaching a class entitled Introduction to Teaching, for students who want to become teachers in the future. We all know that developing online portfolios is an important part of teacher education. Therefore, I would like to use blogs with my students for this exact purpose. As they write teaching philosophies, lessons plans, observation notes, and reflections, the blog will be a place where their work will be posted for review and as a place to store these important documents for future access.

Although these purposes can be fulfilled in other ways, blogs have the power to make assignments meaningful and are a motivator for quality. High-order thinking is a constant and writing has purpose. Powerfully stated, writing stops; blogging continues. Writing is inside; blogging is outside. Writing is monologue; blogging is conversation. Writing is thesis; blogging is synthesis . . . none of which minimizes the importance of writing” (Richardson, 2006, pg.30).

References:

November, A. (2008). Web Literacy for Educators. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. Copyright 2008 by Sage Publications, Inc. Used by permission of Sage Publications, Inc.

Richardson, W. (2006). Blogs, wiks, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.