The use of weblog in my year 11 business studies class will be a new experience for not just my students but for me as well. The main aim for the use of weblog in my classroom is to enhance and deepen students learning as well as provide students with an outlet where they will be able to participate in class discussions without feeling intimidated – some students are shy to voice their thoughts in class and as most students are used to texting, this will be a comfortable medium for them to use. I also hope that the use of the blog would serve to build a community where students will collaborate to increase their learning.
To begin the introduction of the use of blog I will allow students to visit and read blogs from a selected list for them to have a model to follow. Next I will post a unit topic and objectives, in doing so students will be able to keep abreast with the areas of study to be undertaken and may wish to do reading ahead of the class. Students will also be asked to introduce themselves by posting to the class blog as well as responding to their classmates’ postings. This will give students training in accessing, posting, and responding to post independently. This will be done in one of the four (4) lessons allotted for the course. In using a lesson to facilitate my students to use weblog will assist those students without a computer or internet access at home.
Once I deemed that students are comfortable in navigating the class blog they will be provided with a rubric outlining the class expectations. At this point content related questions will be posted and students will be required analyze the questions and then post a response to the original questions. Along with content questions business related current events will also be used to get students to apply their business knowledge in real life situations. Along with posting responses to the original post students will be required to reply to three (3) of their classmates postings. According to Richardson (2010) when students realize that their work no longer ends at the classroom door but is assessable to the world at large they will be motivated to learn.
Reference
Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
Hi Leonie,
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of using class time to provide guided instruction and ensure that all students have access to the technology for learning. How will you ensure access to the technology for the application and responses? Will students have time in school? Do all of your students have access to the needed technology outside of school?
The use of a rubric and sample blogs will help provide great examples for the students. Will you incorporate writing skills into the expectations of the blog responses? I would not want a significant part of business grade to be dependent on grammar, but communication and writing are important skills in business and this may be a good opportunity to foster their development.
It sounds like you are well on your way to the successful use of blogs in the classroom!
Ellen
Leonie
ReplyDeleteI really like the idea of using blogs for students who are to shy to speak out in class. I like how you would take the time to correctly introduce blogs to your class. What do you do if students do not have access outside the classroom. How will they be able to complete the assignments. I also love the fact that you will introduce the use of rubrics to go along with your blogging lesson. I have been using rubrics for years it is such a simple way to let the students know what is expected so they can strive for the highest scores. One question comes to mind when having students respond to each other, have you ever had students respond in an inappropriate way to others or any bullying occur.
Stacey.
@ Ellen
ReplyDeleteStudents who do not have access to the Internet and/or computer will be able to use computer club time which is offered during the lunch period daily and after school in between the school bus schedule. I would expect high level of communication skills from the students since they would be preparing for external examination and the work environment.
@ Stacey
ReplyDeleteFor those students who do not have access to computer or Internet would be able to utilize part of their lunch time during computer club which is open to all students – each year group have a given day but not all students visit the lab. Another alternative that is available to these students is in between the first and second run of the school bus.
To answer your question on inappropriate language I must say that for the most part students at my school use the appropriate language when communicating with each other. We have not had any incident of bullying at the institution either and this is due to the fact that the school is located on a small island and majority of the student body is related in one way or another.
Dear Leonie,
ReplyDeleteYour post shows that you have thoughtfully created a detailed approach for your use of blogging next year. Your consideration into the realistic length of time (number of lessons) you will need to spend on blogging can only help you succeed in meeting your goals once it comes time for school to begin again. I also think it was great that you have identified your specific expectations for your students. In outlining the number of comments that will be expected from them right off the bat, you are providing your students with a clear picture of what the year will bring.
One thing you may want to consider is having each student create their own blog as opposed to commenting off of your main blog. There are websites that will even link the blogs for you. I use kidblog, which is appropriate for a fifth-grade classroom. I am sure that you can find others more appropriate for high school students or use the RSS technology that we learned about this week to link them all. The reason why I suggest that you consider this is because, depending on your number of students, having students comment to your post, and then comment to three other students’ responses, could create an enormous number of posts. It could get a little confusing. I tried this last year with seventeen students, and I quickly had to change to having each student have a separate blog in order to keep things straight. In my example, I had each student comment on two of their classmates’ posts. Perhaps, with high school students, this will not be as much of an organizational headache as I experienced. However, it may be something you want to consider. Good luck with your class blog(s)!
Liza
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteMy hyperlink to kidblog did not transfer through the comment. So, if you are interested in checking out the website, its address is:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.kidblog.org
@ Liza
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment! Having the students create their own blog is definitely a good idea and one in which I will use after the initial practice with the class on blogging and introduce the students to using RSS feed. I know they will find this very interesting. Thanks for sharing your experience and I will surely use the knowledge I gain from doing this Walden program of study.
~Leonie