Facilitating and Inspiring Student Learning and Creativity through technology is the main goal I am trying to attain through my game plan. Through classroom presentations and projects that have a technology basis I feel I have done a better job of incorporating technology into classroom assessments. However, I would like to make a stronger effort to implement something that would allow for even more student creativity and learning. I feel a classroom blog would be a great resource for our classroom, parents and community. A classroom blog would promote flexibility in the methods and settings in which students can communicate with one another, and teachers (Cennamo, Ross, & Ertmer, 2010). For a blog to be successful students will need to understand how to maintain and update the classroom blog. Resources such as classroom documents, student work, school bulletins, and other useful documents will need to be uploaded to the classroom blog.
I will need other resources as well to carry out this game plan for our classroom blog. Parents are going to have give their approval for their child to use a classroom blog and to upload any pictures of students that are taken during school. I will need to get district approval for the classroom blog as well as allowing students to use the blog during school hours to update course or district information. Additionally I will have to take with our technology department and get our blog approved for district use, so students and teachers could access the website without being redirected. I will also need to be able to explain how I will monitor the blog consistently and efficiently so nothing on the blog goes against district policy.
Recently I have proposed the classroom blog to our superintendent and am waiting for a response. This is a step in the right direction, as with our district it often takes multiple meetings and proposals to get things approved. Hopefully in the near future I will have an outline of district expectations for the blog. The classroom blog would a great asset to our classroom and would allow for student creativity and learning through technology. The ability to communicate with parents, students and community members about our classroom and school would increase collaboration and even school support.
Cennamo, K., Ross, J. & Ertmer, P. (2010). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
Corey,
ReplyDeleteLast year I started to create blogs with our GT fifth graders for a ballroom dance project. My district does not prefer to use the term "blog", so when in school we have to use the phrase "learning communities". I believe the feeling is that blogs have such a astigmatism and our principal was afraid that parents and teachers would be hesitant on letting their children participate in this group.
After setting up the blogs, I quickly noticed that the students loved talking with one another outside of the classroom about school related topics. I made the blogs private and gave all of my students different log in names and passwords. I was amazed at the amount of students that were staying after school and responding to posts in the evening. Each week, students responded to a general question that I posted onto their group home page and then the conversation further developed into likes, dislikes and other topics regarding ballroom dance.
I think you will find that once you get this process started, your students will love to share their ideas in this new form and it will make homework and classroom assignments a breeze. Best of luck!