Blogging

Blogging

My 5 blogging articles might appear here someday!

My Blog: Irrational Roots Blog

**Five teaching and technology blogs of interest**
1:1 Laptop Programs Students that are given the opportunity to access technology at all times in the classroom. Students are able t instantly create digital presentations and share their files and ideas with their peers. The students are able to use Moodle to access any of the course components at any time and are able to post reactions and reflections to all assignments. The teacher finds that the students with laptops are more likely to contribute in class because they are able to share their ideas in both online and in the group discussion at the same time. Also, the students are able to research and look up any concepts being taught as they are being taught.

Blogs, Blogs Everywhere The power of blogging is not necessarily finding content but for the writer to be empowered by writing and preparing content. The author writes, "Writing is a reflective process, and the creation of content you're going to share causes you to work hard to make your thinking clear. An audience creates anxiety, and appropriate levels of anxiety support our best efforts. And the best writing calls for our best thinking." The author argues that reading articles is a good thing, but the best thing is for the mind to actually write. The big idea is that if we want our students to be better writers we need to be writers!

Blogging in Class Blogging has been shown to capture students attention long after the school day. Teachers who have used blogs in their classroom are noticing that students are updating and enhancing their blogs long after the school day. By using blogs it is possible to increase contact time with the students and continue to communicate with them. The other plus of blogs is that parents can quickly check and see what their child has been up to in their classes.

Digital Discussion Blogs can be used in so many ways in the classroom from electronic notebooks, forums, post handouts and assignments, also news and updates for the classroom. The article encourages that the blog be used for one main purpose such as journals, notebook, discussion, or personal expression. The article continues to discuss how grading a blog can be rather cumbersome and may not always be the best thing to do. The article finishes by providing some basic background on setting up blogs that are safe for the students and easy for the parents to access.

Blogs Give Students an Audience This article shares on the background of one teacher and why she started using a blog in her classroom. She tells a story of feeling alone as a teacher and struggling to find some meaning in what she is doing everyday. She continues to say because of blogs, both her colleagues' and her students', she was able to feel reconnected and felt as if what she was doing was really important and that it actually mattered.