Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Blog Use
Currently my 7th and 8th grade World History class is studying Israel and Palestine. With the current events happening in the Gaza Strip a blog would be a great resource for students to post their thoughts on the happenings in the Middle East. If they are watching news, or perhaps reading a newspaper ( I am hopeful they do this every now and again) and come across something they feel is pertinent to the conflict they could use the blog to post their thoughts right then and there. They would not have to wait until class time, they could immediately provide their information to the class. Discussion topics could also provided and as well as required posts, to push the discussion along. Providing supplemental readings or links to videos would be a great way to get students interested in the lesson. A blog would be a great way for students to continuing learning even when they step outside of the classroom
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This seems like a great idea to tie in some current events. Do you think that the students would be mature enough to handle the situations that are occurring in the Gaza Strip? Do you think the events are too violent or inappropriate? I am unsure of how 7th and 8th graders are now a days. My mindset is always on 4th graders. A suggestion that I would offer would be to make sure that the students know proper etiquette when blogging, just as a teacher demonstrated in one of our Walden videos. Since this topic may be a sensitive topic for some students, you would need to ensure that there are some guidelines when posting and responding. This would be very important especially if you have children who are familiar with or practice that culture. You want to make sure that all students remain respected during the discussions. Otherwise, this would be a great way to have students get in touch with their feelings about world news events.
ReplyDeleteI think they would probably need discussion topics or questions to guide the conversation. It would help the students focus their thoughts and produce informative or thoughtful responses. I hope at least.
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