Technology Play Testing 1

So you wanna make a blog?  Where to start?  What to share?  How to do it?  There are many sites that offer free blog space, like Blogger and Wordpress.  There is Edublogs for educational blogging for both educators and students.  I have chosen to use Blogger as my blog host is because I have both a personal blog and a professional blog through this host.  I feel the most comfortable using this host because I know its features and it quick access to creating a blog.

What is a Blog?  A blog is an online diary or journal.  The entries in a blog are usually updated frequently, if not updated daily.  This style of writing shows the personality of the author and is in nature informal.  A blog is someones written work, whereas a Vlog my be a video diary or journal.  On my personal page I have made several Vlog's that have been uploaded to my blog.  I look at a blog as what I once stored under my bed with a lock and tiny key as a child.  In our current world people tend to share openly their thoughts that may in the past have been put on paper.  The computer screen acts as a barrier or level of protection when sharing about ourselves.

What are the features of a blog?  Within a blog there are many choices to add to your blog.  These features in Blogger are known as gadgets.  Gadgets can include but not limited to posts, links, video bars, polls, lists, virtual pets, and a profile of the blogger.

What affordances can a blog offer?  A blog offers a  different approach to writing.  Students and teachers can interact virtually using this avenue.  They can contain many variants of media, including audio and video.

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Content:  In my classroom, first graders in Science are expected to observe and record life cycles.  Our first grade team sets up a blog that students use to record and summarize the life cycle of a chick and give update each day on the development of the eggs.  At the end of the 6 week unit, students then upload their recordings, observations, and classwork into their SeeSaw account that is linked to their report card for parents to view.  Our Project Based Learning extension is for each student to create a chicken coop with certain parameters that students mus take into account when creating.  The creation process is very open ended; some students will physically build a coop to house chicks in, while others have designed them through drawings and blue prints, and other students have used Minecraft to create a chicken coop inside their Minecraft world.

Pedagogy:  According to Shulman in the article, Those Who Understand:  Knowledge Growth in Teaching (Shulman L. , 1986), is transforming the content and subject matter to show multiple ways to represent it, and the teacher can adapt the instructional materials to adjust to the students’ prior knowledge.  This pedagogy is so vital to student learning.  We know that a room full of students will have a room full of ways they learn best.  By adjusting the lesson and planning various ways of learning, you will meet the needs of all students and each child can feel successful in their own learning.  Through this activity based on the life cycle, each child could find a way to showcase their learning and be able to express it in different ways through technology.

Technology:  Within the framework of this learning activity, students were able to justify their thinking by first learning the fundamentals of the learning objective and through observation.  Students then had the blog opportunity to journal, add images, upload chicken coop designs, and embed their learning into their own eportfolio using See Saw.  This lesson provided students to be the authors, illustrators, and most importantly the creators of their learning.

Using a blog in the classroom has many benefits.  The first benefit I can think to use in my classroom would be to use it as a writing tool.  I have found that many children have an aversion to traditional writing, using pencil and paper.  I can see giving the option to use a blog format would increase writing and give children a added space to share.  Students, especially in early childhood, love the idea of being the "test pilot" for something new in the classroom.  Using a blog can help with spelling errors that are worrisome to some children and I can see how a child could video themselves and add it to the blog as their writing.

Using a blog can prevent some challenges in the classroom as well.  I can see with younger students that this would take some time to practice and would be very teacher driven to begin with.  As with any technology used in the classroom, appropriate usage and rules would need to be managed and procedures would need to be put in place in order for blogging to be an effective tool in the classroom.

I believe blogs in the classroom can be a valuable tool and enhance the learning of both the student and the teacher.  I look forward to incorporating this tool more into my classroom.

References:
Shulman, L. (1986). Those who understand: Knowledge growth in teaching. Educational Researcher, 15(2), 4-14.
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