EduBlog Insights

I can really identify with this on Barbara Ganley’s bgblogging:

As I have mentioned here several times, I am not a techie—I am a teacher of writing, all kinds of writing, and of Irish literature (when I get the chance).

I am not a techie either—like Barbara, I, too, am a teacher. I’ve taught mainly in the elementary grades, but once I became the ‘Instructional Technology Specialist’ I became a teacher of all content but the most enjoyable part for me was to become a better (I hope) teacher of writing. Blogging paved the way for me. Writing to learn, that’s what blogging is all about.

I am excited about next year’s blogging project. I am returning to my favorite school, J. H. House Elementary and I’ve got many ideas brewing for working with a classroom teacher to use weblogs to get the kids to reflect about what they are learning and how they learn. Letting students write their way into their own understandings and letting them discover answers to the questions they need to ask. Working together, reflecting, passing ideas back and forth and having the abilitity to reach out to such a larger audience to share and learn from one another. This technology is still so exciting to me and every time I can’t do some “techie” thing I realize it doesn’t really matter because you don’t have to be a “techie” to teach good use of technology. Plus, I have so many bloggers and yes, students who share and are so very willing to give a hand when help is needed.

I’ll also be working with a GSU professor who wants to build a research piece into this. Now that’s exciting! We’ll all be learning together and just imagine where it all might lead as we continue to take “responsible risks” and set high expectations to improve the teaching and learning.

I have the wonderful opportunity to use blogging to learn right along with my students and everyone else. Actually blogging can save time. How about that for a new twist? All the time that we teachers have to spend answering students’ questions can give way to guiding students to write (blog ) their way into an understanding of concepts that they could not get before by simple reguritation of facts. Through the connections and collaborations we can all form answers together and build bigger understandings. Blogs really do give us an avenue to learn together. Can’t wait!

This entry was posted on Friday, April 28th, 2006 at 10:58 am and is filed under Reflecting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.