Extra hours!
Where does the time go? Well, at least I am posting to this blog once a week now. I have been interested in what others are saying on their blogs. I have become a bit concerned about the overuse of blogs. I had a student tell me the other day that he "had to" blog for three different teachers over the weekend. This is why I am making blogging voluntary right now. I really want the kids to be excited about new topics and right now they seem to be very interested. The drawback is that some students are not blogging at all, but I am pretty sure that I don't want students blogging just to gain points. They should do it because they are interested, as far as I am concerned.
posted by Crosby at 11:05 PM
5 Comments:
Well, I think there's always a concern that a bunch of teachers will jump on the blogging bandwagon and that kids will get tired of it. But I guess my response to that student would've been something like "Oh, so you mean that 3 teachers asked for your opinion this weekend? They honestly wanted to hear what you had to say - and for others in your class to hear what you had to say? Isn't it great that teachers are finally wanting to know more about what you think and know, instead of just telling you what they know?" I think that if teachers are doing blogging "correctly", it would be hard for students to resent it (well, at least any more than they resent having to do any homework). But it's going to take some time to convince students that we really do value what they have to say, how they think, what they have to contribute.
This makes me nervous! I just set up my Honors sophomores with class blogs, and even though some were already blogging in their science classes, they still seemed pretty excited about it. I think the key, as you said, is not to overuse the blogging, but also to make sure the blogging topics are genuinely thought-provoking and allow for individualism.
One of my posts last week was on the exact same topic...too much blogging. And, Karl responded to me much like he responded to you! I love his response about asking for kids opinions. I think if we phrase it like that rather than just another assignment, it hopefully changes their perspective. I did make all of my kids reply to my blog, but I gave them the choice to respond to two of four posts, and I only graded on completion, not length, quality, or grammar. I thought it was best to just get their feet wet the first time I used the blog. I hope to take it a bit further in the next unit.
Great point Crosby... will it become the new powerpoint project! I think making in voluntary is a great idea, esp. for your honors classes. Do you think that in a non-honors class a voluntary requirement will work?
I am not really sure. I think that in every class there are some kids who will like blogging and other kids who will not like it. I suppose that I hope that it becomes yet another tool, but I certainly don't think that it is the "be-all and end-all," as they say.
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