Blogs in Education Project

1. I used the search engines Google, Ask Jeeves, and Dogpile to do my searches. I found that Dogpile seemed to have the best information and that Google and Ask Jeeves were about the same. I would use Google more though because it's paid sponsors are listed on the right hand side of the window, with an exception to a few results, and on Jeeves the paid sponsor results are listed at the very first and it is a little difficult at first to determine where the actual results start. Dogpile combines 4 different search engines, Google, Jeeves, MSN, and Yahoo, so it's results are going to be the best because it has 4 different search engines to get results from. It also has paid sponsor results but it says "Sponsored by:" before the sites that it sponsers so it is easy to tell the difference. All three of the sites listed educational.blogs.com as the first one, after the paid sponsers.



2. The first thing I noticed was a teacher using a blog called "Classroom Daily Blog" and in it the teacher would post a short blog each day talking about what they did in class that day. This could be a helpful tool for students, teachers, and parents to all interact together. The second thing I noticed that I thought was a good idea was in an 8th grade classroom. The teacher used blogs to have students post book reports and reviews to each other on the blogs. I thought this was a cool idea because then the students could get their peers perspective on what they thought of the book and the reviews of other books. The third thing I noticed was from a kindergarten classroom, which from the very start intrigued me because I was unsure of how a kindergarten class could use blogs. It turned out to be a cool idea, the teacher each day, or every few days would post things they did in class recently. There would be some art work from the students, or a book they read, or upcoming events to prepare for. It shows that blogs can be used in any grade level.



3. RSS readers and aggregators allow you to receive notices when a news story, headline, blog, etc. gets updated. This could be a useful tool in a classroom when an entire class has to post blogs. This would allow the teacher to be able to get notices when a student updates his or her blog page. It would be hard to keep track of which students are doing their blogs or when they get done, but if you could receive notice of them then it would be much eaiser.

4. I think that blogging and RSS readers could be a very useful tool in the classroom. Not only does it get students to understand the internet in a more professional classroom appropriate way but it helps students learn to type at an earlier age. With computers and technology updating constantly students are required to use them at earlier ages then ever before. Most students my age didn't use computers to do any writing when we were in elementary school so learning to type came a little bit later. These days a child can learn to type a lot earlier and help them later on. Blogs are a great way for students to see what their peers think about a certain topic, and it also gives them the proud moments of seeing their work "published" online. I think that if used properly this could be a great tool to start using more in classrooms.

5. The first pro I have for blogs is that it makes sharing your ideas so much eaiser for the entire classroom to see, especially if there are 25 or more kids that want to share their ideas. The second pro is that it promotes keyboard knowledge and computer knowledge, these are both things that they will use their entire lives so it is important to start early. The first con that I have is that it takes away from the actual writing process on paper and for some students the practice of physically writing is something that is needed to create better fine motor skills. If everything moves to computers then you lose a lot of that needed skill. The second con is that some students feel very private about their writing or are shy and don't want anybody but the teacher to be reading their work. If a child is embarrassed about his or her writing it can be very hard for them to write something that they know everybody is going to see.

WebQuest and Wikis

As I talked with Whitney about our thoughts and opinions about the WebQuests, we found out that we each had very different thoughts about what a WebQuest was. Whitney brought up a good point that she thought of the site as more of a resource for lesson plans and teaching tools. I had never thought of it that way and I think it's a great idea. Something that I did differently was that I thought of the page more as an interactive lesson. This is a great tool that can be used in the classroom on many different levels. Any subject can be turned into a WebQuest assignment and become a good hands-on activity for the students.
Wiki's also seem to be a useful tool for classrooms as well. It is a very interactive way for students and teachers to post and edit information in the same spot. This probably wouldn't be a good idea for the primary grades because the students won't understand the internet as well as older students, but this could even be something for parents to interact with as well. Overall I think that both of these are great tools to be used in the classroom for a more interactive and hands on approach to learning.

Learning Styles in a Tech Classroom

I think that researching and knowing about different learning styles is an important thing to know when you are teaching. Each student learns in their own way and it is important to try and accommodate to those needs whenever possible. When it comes to technology in the classroom applying different learning styles can be difficult. It is hard to get a kinesthetic or active learning style to fit in with a computer lesson, but you could fit it in with some sort of video recording lesson or something like that. Not every lesson will be able to accommodate every type of learner, but a good teacher will try and find ways to reach most types. Because technology is such a wide range of things (tv, computer, radio, electronics, etc.) it is possible to reach every learning style in one way or another depending on the topic. I think that with any classroom, not just a technology one, it is important to understand your students and how they learn best.