Entering the Blogosphere

After taking Young Adult Literature last summer with Sara Kajder, I was inspired to implement blogs into my classroom and even my team department this year. Unfortunately, because I only started my second year this year and had the responsibilities of KTIP, UofL classes, team leader, Language Arts Department Chair, and the looming KCCT tests in April for both On-Demand Writing and Arts and Humanities, I was too overwhelmed to be successful. The first two chapters of Richardson's book Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms, have inspired me once again to try to implement blogs as a learning tool in my classroom.

As I was reading these chapters, my creative teaching juices started flowing, and I started thinking about ways in which I could use blogs with my classes next year. While I am at a slight disadvantage because many of my kids do not have internet access at home, I thought weekly class computer time might help solve this problem. Perhaps, if I were to require weekly blog entries from all my students, I could schedule weekly library or computer lab time. I also just recently learned that we have the opportunity to check out a cart of lap-tops. Students could use the blog assignments as an activity to complete when they are finished with their independent practice for daily mini-lessons. This required and highly meaningful activity could also serve as a motivational tool for encouraging students to finish their independent practice and move on to the Preferred Activity Time on the computer.

The book also provided a strong guide on the frontloading lessons I will have to conduct with my students in order to prepare them for safe and responsible use of the internet. I really liked the idea of the letter home, and I'll definitely "borrow" that idea for next year.

In terms of pedagogy, these chapters push to notion of classroom blogs as constructivist teaching tools in which students not only read, but intellectually interact with the material they read, and finally to push their responses all the way up Bloom's taxonomy. When I use blogs with my classes next year I plan to push them to respond to a variety of material, including assigned reading, class discussions, probing questions, and other students' posts. Also, I'd like to require my students to ask questions of each other, and respond to their peer's questions. That way, a rich, meaningful electronic discussion forum can develop to push my students to fully engage in language and all that we learn. As Richardson also notes, my quieter, more shy students might be more apt to participate in such a forum.

Another advantage of blogging, is the notion of the class archieve. This year, as I've asked my students to return to old Writer's Notebook entries or past assignments, they've often lost their work. With a blog, we will have all previous discussions and many written work stored for later reflection. This will be especially helpful now that the KCCT exams require a Reflective Entry in the portfolio. Finding material to reflect upon will be much easier to access.

I look forward to using blogs next year for a number of other reasons as well. Not only will I energetically implement them for their democratic forum, the electronic archieve, constructivist instruction, "hook" of technology, but also for the opportunity for ownership, an authentic audience, and the ability to easily connect to a broad swath of electronic links and resources.