Research into blogging

This is like an ah-ha day! I looked out back and my neighbour had tulips growing by the woods and they look so beautiful! I never thought of putting tulips by the entrance to the woods - just goes to show that if look at things with open eyes, you can learn something every day.

That's what this weekend has been like for me. I really enjoyed Stacey's summary on Wimba on Friday night and everything she referred to I know. I just need more confidence in saying and writing about it. Just like today in choir. The music director told us to be sure we really pronounced the "c" every time we sang the word "Come" and that's exactly what I said at choir rehearsal and what I did in the Middle East. It's just that I don't have the confidence that I'm doing something right because I've never been trained to do anything that I do.
Blogging: Guidelines I will incorporate

• model the type of post and response
• model acceptable language
• include in instructions who is acceptable to open it up to
  
• discuss the blogs given as exemplars elicit understanding
  
• direct students to vocabulary list gleaned from reading blogs
  

Things I've done well:

• blogging criteria
• blogging instructions as to number of posts and comments
• audience and ongoing conversation
• special time of day

Jane confirms in her April 30 post that: Most educators would agree that ‘learning-by-doing’ is the best way to learn. Learning-by-doing supported by new technologies, allows the student to gain a richer learning experience that may otherwise be too expensive or even dangerous to conduct directly (Lombardi 2007, p5). It confirms that my attempts are not in vein and that I may not get it may take several attempts to get it right!

May 2, 2009, Jane's post: Utech (2007) states that blogs need to be viewed as ongoing conversations. He talks about the environment of the Read/Write web. The Web is an open community which allows not only the teacher and the students to participate in the conversation but others from outside.

Utech promotes blogging by giving it special time each day. I certainly agree! Silent reading time was one example of such a time that could be given over to in class blogging. The question raised here was "How can we redefine our time to incorporate Web 2.0 within our classroom?".

Main points of the podcast
+ Blogging can't be merely tacked on to the curriculum
+ Classrooms need to be redefined both in use of time and physical set up
+ As the teacher you guide the conversation on your class blogs
+ Model what good blogging looks like
+ Blogs are for communication with kids and parents alike

References:
Utech, J (2007) Classroom 2.0- Sustained Blogging in the Classroom. Retrieved on 1 May, 2009 from http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=170

Lombardi, M (2007) Authentic Learning for the 21st Century – An Overview http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI3009.pdf Accessed March 24, 2009