HOT Blogging: A Framework for Blogging to Promote Higher Order Thinking reminds me of myself last year. I had created a classroom blog where I posted questions that I wanted my students to respond to that would engage them in critical thinking. I focused questions around books that I was reading aloud to students. I would get on the blog Friday night at like 11 pm and see many posts from my students- many that were right after school. This was highly encouraging to see! Friday night was spent on academic and scholarly tasks! The blog entries would continue to roll in over the weekend! As time went on I too faced the same problem as Stephanie- student comments were so enthusiastic at first. Then they waned quickly. Students wanted more from their blog. Then wanted to be able to publish their writing on the blog. Then wanted to add poems they had written and narratives. Here is a comment by Jarod from my class last year, "I want to celebrate my writing by having others read it. I would rather read it online than sit in class and have people read their piece to me. That is old school Mrs. Engle." I printed that comment and placed it by my computer where it still hangs. It reminds me to stay away from my "old school" ways!
By having students post their writing work on the blog I can see so many good things happening...Constant revisions could be occurring as students receive comments from their peers to perfect the piece. There would be so much more exposure to other pieces. Students could read as many as they wanted and not have to worry about getting with a partner. There would be so many different perspectives offered to help craft the piece. The flip side of that is there may be problems with not so nice comments. Etiquette would have to be taught. Procedures would need to be put into place. The teacher would no longer be the end all grader. Students could help evaluate pieces! How cool would that be? Teachers would take a less active role and merely be a facilitator in the process. Parents would have access to student work. They would be able to see the evolution of their student as a writer and could take an active role in their child's education. This would make it easier for parents to take part in writing education. If student work was published on the web all year long you could easily evaluate growth accumulated by each student throughout the year. This would serve as an evolving portfolio for each student. What a way to study other writer's crafts as well!
When you made the comment about using blogs to keep a portfolio of the student's writing throughout the year, made me think of my own education. While pursuing my other Master's in Library Science, we had to create a blog through a project that we did. Instead of a journal, we created a blog in which each entry was used as a place to blog about each step of our research project. It was a really interesting way to do it because my peers could make comments about my progress. These became a useful way for me to take any suggestions one may have given. In turn, my posting may have given them ideas about the way I was going about my research that they could apply to their own.
ReplyDeleteI love blogging! It is fun, easy, and easily accessible. I want this for my students as well!
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