Chapter 3 Weblogs: Get Started

     Chapter 3 was about how to use a weblog in a classroom.   I find that reading about how to do something is difficult and in only a general way useful to get an idea about how to create a weblog.  I need to do it, like we did in class.  That is how I learn best.  Kerri's lesson last week was what I need.  Thank you Kerri.  I was most interested in the security and safety section on blogging with students.  This is still a little unclear to me.  It is clear to me that I need to have a thoughtfoul plan about using a classroom weblog that is interactive with my students.  I will need to inform administration and the studnet parents of the plan and get approval before implementing it.  The author mentions a safety tool called RSS for monitoring student activity on the weblog, which I am very interested to learn about .
    Reading this chapter motivated me to search the internet for math classroom weblogs.  I found many blogs to look at to help give me ideas of what can be done.  I learned that you can post videos, or cartoons or songs or poems or links to math sites etc.  This could be valuable for providing alternative presentations of concepts for students that need more processing time and different presentations fo the concepts.  I also learned how the weblog can be used to get feedback from the students.  They can answer poll questions, they can input their own music video, they can input questions in the form of posts etc, etc.  The work I did to look at example classroom weblogs was very valuable to help me synthesize my thoughts on how I could use a classroom weblog.  A good example was Ms. Ionno's 6th grade class room weblog http://weblogs.pbspaces.com/ionnoj/.   Her layout was easy to work through.  I could link to websites on pie day, on how to solve equations with multiple variables, I could read her posts on upcoming tests, homework and stuff going on  in the school & I could read posts by the students about their learning.  I decided the weblog is a great source of information for the students.

Chapter 2 Weblogs Pedagogy & Practice

     Reading chapter 2 in our textbook was very valuable for me because I was able to see and experience actual classroom weblogs.  While the focus on the reading was on classroom weblogs was for ELA & literature type courses, there was an example of a weblog used in a AP calculus math course.      The AP calculus math course weblog was for the 2007-2008 school year.  The weblog had a large amount of class information.  It had a wide variety of many student and teacher entries including polls & assignments posted by the teacher, slide shows & podcasts on concepts and lessons posted by both the students and the students, feedback on the course posted by the students and many other varied links.   While the posted information was interesting and valuable for the students and the teachers, I found, given the way my mind and brain work, that it was a bit overwhelming for me to be able to efficiently work my way around the information.

     While reading chapter 2 I became excited in thinking about how I might implement a weblog for my classes.  I had lots of great ideas but most of my ideas centered around student entries.  When it came to student entries I kept getting hung up on issues of security and safety.  Mostly I thought about how do I keep inappropriate entries including links and blogs being posted by the students.  I guess I could set up an approval process but then I have to invest a significant amount of time doing this.   The inappropriate entries by the students could include safety issues where the students enter personal information on their blog that could cause issues.  Maybe our class can discuss this issue and come up with good solutions.

Chapter 1 The Read/Write Web

     Reading chapter 1 in our textbook was very important for me because it clarified how the world wide web has transitioned from a read only source of information into a read/write communication tool.  I use the web almost exclusively for reading information and not entering information.  The most experience I have in using the web as a read/write tool is using the weblog site for my fantasy football league, using a blogging website for a differentiated instruction on-line course, and occasionally writing blog entries about an article I read on a magazine/newspaper journal site and then emailing them to friends and/or families.   Between our first class and reading chapter 1 in the textbook I am now ready to embrace the internet as a read and write tool for sharing information.

     My mind has been racing with ideas how I can use the internet web to better communicate with my students.  A major area that is lacking in communication with my students is students often do not like inform me when they do not understand how to do the work we are doing, have questions and explaining how to do the work.  I am thinking that if the internet web is a blend of anonymous and named communication entries it could be powerful for giving the students a communication tool that they will feel comfortable using for communicating with me, especially since most of them regularly actively communicate on internet web blog sites.