Well, here it is - the end of the blogging assignment for EDTC625. Throughout the past few weeks, I've learned a lot about how blogging can be used as a tool within the classroom. Through discussions with my classmates, as well as through exploring different websites, I discovered just how effective and useful blogging can be.
So, as I write this final post, I want to begin thinking of how I am actually going to use a blog within my classroom. I've mentioned some ways that blogs can be used in a previous post, but now it's time to really apply what I've learned to my own teaching.
As I have already mentioned, my class is currently participating in a pen pal project with students from Turkey. When discussing how blogs can be used to connect students around the world, I stated that I would love to incorporate blogs into this project. Well, that's exactly what I think I'm going to do! According to Lisa, the author of the article "15 Awesome Ways To Use Blogs in Your Classrooms", pen pals can now be changed to "blog pals". Students can create blog posts and respond to the blog posts of others. I am definitely going to suggest this to the teacher in Turkey. If they have the appropriate technology within their school, I would love to see "blog pals" come to life!
Furthermore, another step I plan to take is using blogs as a method of readers response. Students can currently use our online private message board thread to post their thoughts about our book of the month. However, now that I know how effective blogs can be for posting responses to books, I would love to replace this message board with a blog. In fact, blogs can be used as "Five Minute Reading Response" tools according to this article. More specifically, Scholastic suggests using Kidblog as a way to create and manage student blogs. This is definitely a website that I would like to check out and use in the near future.
Overall, I've really enjoyed this assignment! It was great being able to explore Blogger, read and respond to my classmates' posts, and maintain a blog of my own. This experience definitely opened my eyes to how blogs can be used within the classroom!
References
G Connell. (2013, Feb 14). Five minute reading responses [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/top-teaching/2013/02/five-minute-reading-responses
Kidblog. (2014). Retrieved from http://kidblog.org/home/
Lisa (2012, Mar 12). 15 awesome ways to use blogs in your classrooms [Web log comment]. Retrieved from http://blog.simplek12.com/education/15-awesome-ways-to-use-blogs-in-your-classrooms/
