Blog Beginnings

    Last week I asked my GSU students to post about what they were reading in one of the chapters of our textbook, Educational Technology in Action.  My post, Responding to Professional Writing on the class weblog gave a brief description of blogging about what you are reading. Then I posted a sample post of my own, WebQuests Could Be Powerful, along with a sample comment

on that post.  This seemed to help them and give them more

confidence. I’m finding that university students are a little more

hesitant to blog and seem to be looking more for what the “teacher”

wants than my elementary students. I’m working at getting them past

that. It should be a good learning experience.

After discussion, the GSU students posted on their  blogs

and  went to one of their  classmates’ blogs to post a

comment on their response to the reading.  I also encouraged them

to end up with a thought-provoking question that  would invite

comment from others.  Here’s a few samples:

Cara wondered about applying what she learned to other subjects……

While the students are searching and enjoying the sites off the

selected art museum websites , can you think of other subjects that

could be incorporated while learning how to become artistically

literate?

Christen puzzled over some possible problems………..

Two problems that I

predict, however, is the copying of other people’s work and presenting

another’s work as one’s own, and also finding poor examples of peers’

work and using those poor examples as standards for correct work.

Do you agree that these could be issues, and can you think of any other possible problems with sharing work online?

Sara inquires about other fieldtrips………..

I love

the idea of so much information being available at the students

fingertips. We live in a day and age where you can learn a wealth of

information about the world without even leaving your hometown! Today’s

youth are priveleged to have such a luxury, and these virtual field

trips are an excellent way to explore it. Can you discuss more field

trips (other than art museums) that would be possible to “virtually”

attend?

Check out these beginning bloggers and send some encouraging comments. Links to the student blogs are on the class blog.


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