I have enjoyed creating and editing my own blog space, its great to know that I have my own piece of the internet that is mine and mine alone. There are also many potential benefits of blogging for students in schools some of these benefits as well as some negative and interesting aspects of blogging are outlined below:
Plus | Minus | Interesting |
· Modern – keeping students up to date with developing technology as they learn to blog, post links, images, create voki’s and a multitude of other skills learnt in cyberspace. · Interactive – students can work together, read and comment on others work · Fun – posting learning onto a blog is more enjoyable than writing a report. · Engaging for kinaesthetic and visual and auditory learners · Connects students with others around the world as learning goes beyond the classroom walls. · Encourages student response to others work · Encourages students to share their work with others · The teacher is able to track the students learning progress · Students learn to reflect on their own learning from an early age and to accept constructive criticism as well as positive feedback · Content is chronologically ordered and is easy to upload using ready formatted programs · Newest content is at the top of the page to allow the reader to start at the top and read down to where he or she left off last time · Teachers can use blogs as a simple tool to post announcements, assignments and notifications to students and their caregivers. · Students and teachers can post useful links to other websites to enrich the content being given · Students have equal opportunity to record their own thoughts and learning, from the loud student to the quiet student, both have equal writing space and a keyboard as their tool to voice who they are and what they stand for · Students and teachers are able to get to know each other in a new non-threatening space · Encourages all students to write, even those who may not enjoying writing · Close attention must be paid to spelling and grammar as others around the world can read posts · Blogging can open up the student teacher relationship · Blogging can allow students to communicate and work with professionals and experts on the content they are studying · Students are taking ownership of their learning · Enhances reading skills · Students learn the responsibilities that go along with public publishing (language use, content, copy write) | · Some students may not have internet access · May be confronting for some students to post their learning as there may be the fear of others reacting negatively to it · Danger of internet safety as students connect with people from around the world · Un-supervised blogging could pose potential dangers for young people such as predators and cyber bullying aimed at peers, teachers and others · Posting of copy write material without referencing the source · Blogging to complete an assignment for a grade can restrict students imagination and personal input into blogging · Students may find it hard to write their thoughts and learning | · Students can explore a new world in a new way · Students are able to experience the seemingly ‘grown up’ world of the internet from a young age with real learning possibilities available to them · There are various different applications that support web logging available · Private blogs are available so that students and teachers can communicate privately providing and receiving feedback without posting it to a public site · |
My experience so far with this blog as been positive in most ways. As far as a learning blog goes it has been scaffolded well. Each post has been guided by the lecturers to ensure that learning has been achieved. I have needed to engage with these tools in order to reflect on them, and although my skill level was low to start with I have been able to follow the directions to achieve this engagement. I feel that my skills are continually improving and this is due to the scaffolded nature of this task.
I also feel that a blog would be an effective tool to use as a means of sharing personal thoughts and information with friends and family and the wider world. I, myself am not inclined to do this openly but would be willing to sharing thoughts about an event or place on a personal blog. Students would also have this option to create a personal blog to share their learning or thoughts or both. This would have the potential to open the student up for cyber bullying or becoming a victim of a predator. Learning Managers need to ensure that students understand the dangers of sharing too much personal information on the web through personal posts such as blogs.
I also feel that a blog would be an effective tool to use as a means of sharing personal thoughts and information with friends and family and the wider world. I, myself am not inclined to do this openly but would be willing to sharing thoughts about an event or place on a personal blog. Students would also have this option to create a personal blog to share their learning or thoughts or both. This would have the potential to open the student up for cyber bullying or becoming a victim of a predator. Learning Managers need to ensure that students understand the dangers of sharing too much personal information on the web through personal posts such as blogs.
Wiki:
I will use this wiki as a learning tool to gain skills using a wiki space. I have uploaded some images, written text and embedded a you tube link to a clip I used in a lesson with a year 2 class. I found embedding the you tube clip a little hard at first as it did not work the first couple of times I did it, so I read the instructions again and kept trying – eventually I had success and it is now there for the world to view. The images I have uploaded are some photographs that I have taken. I found this task quite simple and was able to upload and resize the images quickly and easily. This task could easily be mastered by a primary school student from about year 3 upwards and what a great tool for sharing images and photographs both taken by the student and found elsewhere. Students could take photographs of the artwork or projects and upload them to share. This would give students a real sense of achievement as their work is now published.
Strengths | Weaknesses |
· Collaborative learning · Supportive · Fun · Easy · Interactive | · Risk of inappropriate content · Potential for damaging content to be posted · Non-scaffolded spaces will not support learning |
Opportunities | Threats |
· Students can work together and share ideas and build knowledge · Share knowledge, information, research, ideas · Assist peers learning · Build relationships online · Build online knowledge and confidence | · Non cooperative members · Important information deleted and lost · Inappropriate content published |
Websites:
I've just created a website using weebly.com it is fantastic. I haven't looked too deeply at the features available yet but so far have found it to be very user friendly. I believe that higher primary students would have no problems understanding and operating this tool. It could be used to share work, excursions, incursions or many other aspects of learning.The link to by weebly site is:
http://chelle04.weebly.com/
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