Overview: Slavery Final Project

Uploaded on authorSTREAM by dos113

In The News: Blogs in the Classroom

I recall buying the textbook for this class and looking at the cover to see words that I have heard before, but not really understood, such as Blogs, Wikis, and Podcasts. After going through a few classes, I realized that blogging was something that I really wanted to investigate more and focus on, both for myself and also to integrate into my classroom. I’ll admit that I was a bit confused on what blogging really was. I thought maybe posting an assignment online or writing a journal and publishing it online would count as blogging; however, Richardson does an excellent job in distinguishing between what was blogging and what was not, which really helped me out in taking the next step in blogging: classroom integration (32). Now that I had a grasp on what blogging was, I could brainstorm ways to incorporate it into my curriculum.

Put simply, blogging is an “easily created, easily updateable Website that allows an author (or authors) to publish instantly to the Internet from any Internet connection”. But blogs differ from ordinary sites in that they are made up of reflections and conversations that may be updated every day. As Richardson so clearly says, blogs demand interaction (Richardson 17-18). But, the question remains, do blogs really have a place in the classroom. More specifically, do they have a place in my 8th grade social studies classroom?

As I asked myself this question, I decided to research blogs in classrooms online to see what other people were saying about it. I first started researching how other people started blogging in the classroom. Helena Echlin wrote a great article on steps teachers should take in creating a blog in the classroom. She really helped me in tacking the issue of whether or not blogs had a place in the classroom because she specifically listed reasons why blogs would work in a classroom. For example, she states that blogs can be used for classroom management, like posting assignments and summarizing what occurred in class that day, or as an online notebook, a venue for classroom discussion, and an opportunity for students to express themselves personally. Echlin goes further to give examples of good sites to help set up class blogs, like Blogger.com or edublogs.org. Finally, Echlin cites an example lesson plan on how to write constructive comments in a blogging community which was perfect for my classroom because it was an eighth grade lesson plan and clearly instructs students on how to construct an appropriate response to a blog.

My research also showed me that integrating technology in the classroom is happening everywhere and is being encouraged even by state governments. When researching blogs in Pennsylvania classrooms specifically, I came across this article that speaks about initiatives that the Pennsylvania state government are taking to make technology an integral part of the school community. This article specifically sited the School District of Jenkintown, and how they have been using an online portal to implement blogs, wikis, and other Web 2.0 tools.

All of those ideas and examples really convinced me that blogging did have a place in the classroom; however, it wasn’t until I read an article by Frank Catalano that I realized the true power of blogs in classrooms. Catalano describes a school in San Francisco that truly embraces blogging. When asking a teacher why he used blogs in the classroom, the response was that he wanted to make his classroom available beyond the classroom doors. The school uses blogs for countless things, such as connecting with other classrooms around the country and communicating with parents. I feel like this district exemplifies why blogging should be used in schools today.

Overall, research on the Internet is overwhelmingly in support of blogging in the classroom. Incidentally, while I was doing my research I found a very good site that has the top 100 education blogs today. It was further proof that blogs really do have a place in the education community, whether students or teachers utilize it.

From my research on blogging in the classroom, I know that blogging is important in education for several reasons. First of all, blogging provides an opportunity for students to express themselves in a way that isn’t possible in the ordinary classroom. As Richardson states, blogs are a constructivist tool for learning and foster deeper analysis and understanding of a certain topic (27-28). Moreover, blogs provide those students who do not normally speak in class a perfect opportunity to express their opinions and comment on other’s thoughts. Finally, I believe that blogging encourages discussion among students and holds students somewhat more accountable for their work since their students will be reading and commenting on their work. This not only encourages students to work harder on their work, but also takes learning outside the classroom.

How Will the Issue Affect Me as an:

Effective Internet Miner:

My students and I could find the class blog very easily. First of all, students would need to create an account at www.blogger.com . Then, I would post the link to the class blog on my class webpage (which is under construction now but should be ready by the fall!).

Integrator:

Using a blog will definitely enhance my classroom. I already have several ideas that will enhance student learning. First, I want students to post a blog on a current event issue once a week that is of interest to them and somehow relates back to my class. Students would then be expected to comment on other student’s posts. I also have several classroom debates and a blog would be a great brainstorming tool for students to generate ideas for the debate and comment on other student’s positions and ideas. Next, having students take on different personas and blogging as if they were a figure from history would definitely provide deeper understanding and analysis of the course material. In sum, there are countless ways in which blogging will enhance my teaching and student learning. To be honest, I am still brainstorming ways in which I will use blogs, but there are a few ideas that I definitely plan on trying next school year.

Policy Advisor:

Before I even start specifically talking about how I am going to use blogging in my classroom, I would have a brief introduction to what blogging is and a lesson on appropriate etiquette and commenting online. Next, I would dedicate a portion of Back to School Night to show parents how to set up accounts and review the purpose for implementing such a tool in the classroom. Students and parents would then be expected to sign an agreement that clearly states the expectations and rules of the students. This would be viewed as a sort of a “contract” between students and the teacher. Bud the Teacher posted great examples from each of his classes on what they came up with for a blogger contract as a class.

Clearly, blogging will greatly increase the use of Internet in my classroom. Therefore, along with my Blogging Contract, I will review and expect students to follow my district’s AUP.

Producer:

Right now, I have several different ideas about how I am going to put this all together so that my students have success with it. But overall, I think I need to start the school year with explaining the purpose and rules of blogging to students and parents. From there, I plan on having students create a blogger account, and log onto my blog and simply post comments and get the students familiar with the “blogosphere.” I think that modeling is extremely important here, especially when many students will be inexperienced with blogging. Next, I will have students start working on their own blogs by posting current event reactions once a week. Around November is when I plan on using the blog as a bigger element in a lesson and give the students more leeway with their blogs. Just to clarify, I don’t plan on using the blog for one single lesson; rather, I plan on using it throughout the year as a sort of electronic portfolio.

References

"Blogger.Com." 10 June 2008 . http://www.blogger.com

Catalano, Frank. "Why Blog?" The Journal. 10 June 2008 . http://www.thejournal.com/articles/17616_3

Echlin, Helena. "Digital Discussion: Take Your Class to the Internet." Edutopia. 10 June 2008 . http://www.edutopia.org/digital-discussion-take-your-class-to-internet 

 
"Galileo Web." Galileo Academy of Science and Technology. 10 June 2008 . http://www.galileoweb.oeg

Nagel, Dave. "Pennsylvania Rolls Out Interactive Technologies to 231 Districts." The Journal. 10 June 2008 . http://www.thejournal.com/articles/22536

Richardson, Will. Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. Thousand Oaks: Corwin P, 2006.

"Student Created Blog Policies." Bud the Teacher. 10 June 2008 . http://www.budtheteacher.com/wiki/index.php?title=Student_Created_Blog_Policies

 
"Technology Policy." Central Bucks School District. 10 June 2008 . http://www.cbsd.org/library/techpolicy.htm

"The DrakePond." Jenkintown School District. 10 June 2008 . http://drakepond.pbwiki.com/

"Top 100 Education Blogs." Online Education Database. 10 June 2008 . http://oedbd.org/library/features/top-100-education-blogs

Response Blog #3: To Blog or Not to Blog...

Our discussion last night on blogging in the classroom really got me thinking about whether or not blogging truly had a place in the classroom. Since the beginning of the class, I have been going back and forth on the usefulness of blogs and how I could incorporate them into my class. I think the most daunting task would be actually having my students set up their blogs. I teach about 120 students all year, and having to read and comment on 120 different blogs immediately turned me off of this whole idea. However, a few ideas surfaced during our class discussion that really changed my mind. One, I could assign “blog buddies” and each student would have another student that they would be required to check up on, comment on their blog, etc. This alleviates the stress of me having to constantly monitor all 120 blogs. Secondly, I could tell my students that I will be picking only 3 blogs (at random) from the entire marking period that I would grade. Students would be allowed to write more, but they would have to write 3. Lastly, I could simply focus on one class period and have them blog, thus limiting the number of blogs I’d be monitoring to about 25-30.

So, I have decided to use one of those ideas (I’m still figuring out which!) but I do plan on somehow using blogs in my classroom come September. I might get some trouble from parents about blogging but I can finally say with confidence, after our class, that blogs do have a place in the classroom. When researching the benefits of blogs in the classroom, I came across an article by David Huffaker, who expressed his belief that blogs promote literacy in the classroom. He states that blogs “promote self-expression, a place where the author can develop highly personalized content.” Moreover, he describes the idea of making blogs inter-disciplinary, which is a really powerful idea when you think about it. If our class discussion last night wasn’t enough, Huffaker’s stance on blogs definitely convinced me that this was a Web 2.0 tool that I needed to be using in my class.

I realize, however, that I have a long way to go. I would need to set up a clear AUP for my students if they were to be blogging. I’d need to model proper and appropriate blogging and commenting techniques. And lastly, I’d need to inform parents of the objectives I was striving to meet by using blogging (which, I think, Richardson models very well on page 13-15).

I could talk more about blogs, but I feel that I would be remiss if I didn’t mention something that happened to me in my classroom this past week, since it relates so closely to using the Internet in the classroom. My students were researching for a civil war project and I had set up a personalized Google search engine for them, had gotten a laptop cart for my classroom, and had gone over presentation techniques if students chose to use Power Point for their presentations. I thought everything was going well until the laptops stopped working. Out of the 15 laptops, about 10 of them didn’t work. Students who had saved their work the previous day could not reach their work. Some student’s flash drives didn’t work on certain laptops, and students who created Power Points at home were not able to access them from our school’s computers for some reason. Luckily, I had a book cart from the library with tons of great civil war books as a backup for students to get their research done. Nevertheless, the whole experience frustrated me because it seemed like technology complicated and jumbled up the education process when I intended it to facilitate and enhance it.

But, I’m happy to say that this frustration only lasted for that day. When reflecting on my lesson and the research fiasco, I realized that yes, incorporating this technology would be rocky at first, but I would learn ways to smooth out those rocky patches. For example, to avoid any flash drive mishaps, I encouraged students to set up a Google account, and upload their work to Google Docs. This way, they could access their work wherever they were. I also realized that some things are just out of my hands (like the laptops not working) and that I shouldn’t let that hinder my incorporating the Internet into my lessons.

Much to my relief, the next few days of research went smoothly. Students embraced the Google Docs idea, and some students even came up to me to tell me how that would make their lives easier in other classes. Overall, I realize that this was simply a bump in the road, and I’m not going to let one bad experience ruin my use of technology.

Response Blog #2: The "5 Commandments" of Web Quests and some Web Quest Reviews

I have to admit, I was completely wrong in my understandings of a web quest. This is what I visualized when I heard "web quest": Students would go online, search pre-determined sites, and gather information. And this was the technique that I used when I had my students complete web quests. I never knew about the 5 steps (or, what I call "commandments") that are basically the backbone of any good web quest: 

1. A good introduction that gives a broad overview of the quest.

2. The specific task that the students are about to complete.

3. A step-by-step process of what the students should be doing.

4. A way for students and teachers to evaluate their completed task (preferably a rubric)

5. A conclusion that wraps up the whole process.

If a web quest contains all 5 of these steps, it will most likely be a meaningful and educating experience. 

While searching online for some web quests, I found a couple of great ones that I could definitely use in my classroom:

• European Exploration This web quest is a great way to start off my 8th grade curriculum. I am always pressed for time at the end of each school year because I spend way too much time on my European explorer unit; however, I teach American history. I feel that students must know reasons why Europeans came to the Americas, but I never found an effective way to mold all of the reasons into one lesson. This web quest, however, does just that by focusing on "God, glory, and gold", which are the three main reasons for European exploration in the 1400s and 1500s. It also presents different countries and their reasons for exploration, not just Great Britain (which is sometimes refreshing because American history is often presented from a British-perspective). 
• Parliamentary Defense and the American Revolution: This web quest really struck me as a great way to teach American history from a different perspective. Since it is an American history class, I always teach the Revolutionary War from an American colonist's perspective. This always leads to reasons why Britain was infringing upon the colonist's freedom and rarely does the British argument arise in my classroom (for example, sure, the British were taxing us without representation, but why were they doing it? There must have been reasons for that to occur!) This web quest does just that: it raises the question as to whether or not the actions of Britain (more specifically, Parliament) are able to be justified. Students must try to defend the British side of the argument. 

Both of these quests follow the 5 commandments of a good web quest and I plan to use them next year in my instruction. Now comes the hard part... creating your own web quest. 

TeAchnology provides a really good template to use for creating web quests and WebQuest.org provides a great summary of how to create a really good web quest. I am now seriously considering creating a web quest for my final project.... now I just need to narrow it down to a topic!

Testing out Posting an Image

This is my school. I just wanted to test out uploading images to my blog!

Response Blog #1: Lost in the Blogosphere

Well, it's official. I am definitely Web 2.0-ed out! I first heard about Web 2.0 at a department meeting last year. The presenter was showing the department how to use a wiki and how to set one up and briefly touched on some other elements of Web 2.0. I immediately thought that some of these tools were  great educational devices to use in the classroom. But then... life went on. I became inundated with the typical everyday stresses of a middle school and forgot about wikis, blogs, and everything else that had to do with Web 2.0.

However, the idea of Web 2.0 emerged again at the beginning of this current school year.  My school began to stress the importance of incorporating technology into the classroom. I thought: "This is simple. Have the students do a few more web quests, use Power Point for notes, and I should be fine." But boy, was I wrong! After a couple of workshops, I realized that the internet isn't simply an online "encyclopedia" that only has the potential to spit out information; rather, it is like a breathing, living body that provides you with the opportunity to communicate with it, and it will respond back. This was a revolutionary concept for me! It was at that moment that I finally realized the true potential that the internet had and the vast opportunity that it offers a teacher. 

One of the reasons why I decided to take this class was because of that one moment. I thought: "OK, now I realize that the internet isn't just for gathering information... but now what?" I had many moments of feeling overwhelmed so I thought this class would help me out. And it definitely has so far... but I still feel like there is so much out there to learn! So, in order to help me feel more calm, I decided to sort of "focus" on one element of Web 2.0 (at least for the time being): blogs. 

I tend to have my students write a lot in class, sometimes formally (like a 5-paragraph essay) but mostly reflections, reactions, and opinion pieces. I think that blogs would be a perfect tool to use when I have my students write informally. But, my district tends to be very cautious when it comes to using technology, especially for homework assignments and communication. So, in my head... I thought that the first step to having my students start blogging would have to be to set up some ground rules. Bud Hunt, whose blog I have recently been perusing, sets up some great rules for blogging. I think these are perfect, especially for a middle school student who is used to communicating on MySpace or Facebook where spelling, grammar, and appropriateness is seen as being unimportant. Hunt also stresses the importance of thinking about what you are going to blog about before you publish it. Again, what a great word of caution for a 13-14 year old! In my class now, we have discussions on current events and not a day goes by that I don't remind the kids to be respectful of other people's views and opinions. Similarly, the students would need to do that online even though they weren't face to face with the other students. 

So, I have the kids set up with their blogs and have established rules... now comes the hard part: knowing when blogging would be the appropriate tool to use. I think that, in my classroom at least, blogging would be best for current event issues and reactions to class discussions. For example, each day I start the class with a current event topic-recently, the Democratic Presidential Nomination has dominated our discussions! (Side-note: this is a great place to find current events for a middle school classroom) After our class discussion, I could have the students go home and write a reaction to the discussion on their blog. Not only would this carry their thinking outside the classroom, but it may provide an opportunity for those students who aren't that comfortable sharing their opinions in class to express their thoughts.

And the best part about blogging is that other students could comment on the other student's ideas. When time in class is precious and you can't continue a discussion for fear of not covering what you were supposed to, the blog allows the discussion to continue after school... and into the night! I can't tell you how many times I had to stop a really good discussion simply because we had other things to do in class that day. But that doesn't have to be a worry anymore... blogging allows a limitless discussion.

Another thought on blogs in the classroom: will it cause confusion (for teacher and student) or will it make things easier? I am a big fan of correcting things with a pen and paper... this way I can comment, circle, cross-out, and edit all I want. But when reading a student's blog, I fear it might be more difficult for me, as a teacher, to provide meaningful feedback. Moreover, will the student feel more stressed out by using a blog rather than just writing on a piece of paper? I don't know the answers to these questions until I try blogging out in my classroom for myself... and that is what I am going to do!

One final thought: if students are blogging in more than one class, will they become confused with which blog goes with which class? Laura Spencer raises the question as to whether or not the blogosphere is getting too crowded from a business standpoint. This made me think about the educational blogosphere and whether or not blogging would be "worth it" to do in a middle school classroom. Spencer concludes that blogging, like television, is currently going through a change where it is becoming more mainstream. However, that does not mean businesses won't benefit from blogging and should shy away from it. Similarly, I feel that teachers should strive to use blogging in their classrooms even if students are blogging in other classes, which leads me to my final thought:

Sure, we may feel somewhat overwhelmed by the new and fancy Web 2.o but that doesn't mean we should tune it out. As educators, it is our responsibility to stay up-to-date on such things. Not only will our students benefit from it, but we will, too. And so I continue to navigate my way through the blogosphere... slowly, resiliently, and determined to make blogs work in my classroom!

Why is the RSS and social bookmarking important to an educator?

After reading the chapters on RSS and social bookmarking, and also actually utilizing these tools in the last few classes, I've discovered that my views on these tools have drastically changed. At first, I'll admit, I was a bit skeptic about the actual usefullness of these tools. When I first read about these tools, they all seemed a bit overwhelming and I wasn't sure if I could really use them. To be honest, they seemed like more work than they were worth. But I think I could definitely use the RSS because it has the power to keep me constantly updated on several things. Being a social studies teacher, I am always trying to make connections between history and current events. This would be a great tool for me to use, professionally. Moreover, with the upcoming presidential election in November, more frequent updates would definitely be beneficial for me as a teacher. However, I don't think that I would require my students to set up their own RSS accounts because they are only in middle school and I don't think it would be appropriate quite yet for them.

As for the social bookmarking, this is definitely a useful tool for me as a professional. Not only is it extremely easy to use, it makes life much more easy! Now, my bookmarks are available on any computer.

Reflections on the First Class

We are just about to finish up our first class and I have to say that I'm pretty excited about the next 7 weeks. At first, I'll admit, I was a bit overwhelmed with all of the possibilities: Web 2.0, blogging, Wikis, Podcasting, etc. I don't know much about any of those things yet after reading "Minds on Fire" by John Seely Brown I know that it is necessary that I learn all I can about these things. Our students today require us to incorporate all of this technology not only to help them stay interested, but to enhance our lessons and make them more meaningful. I think it's our responsibility as educators to learn all about this technology. So I'll end this first posting by saying that I'm looking forward to the next few weeks and learning all I can about the Internet in the classroom!