I am now in the full thrust of my 10th year of teaching English in central New Jersey. Six years were spent at the middle school level and the remainder at the high school. I primarily teach 9th grade English (both College Prep and Honors), which at our school is a genre study, but I also teach what we call English Lab, a class that targets at-risk students to aid in preparing them to pass the high school proficiency test in 11th grade.
The potential applications of blogging in my 9th grade English classroom appear endless! I envision maintaining a classroom blog (teacher blog) in addition to requiring my students to create and manage their own blog.
The classroom blog could serve many purposes including an archive for classroom assignments, a platform to demonstrate exemplary student work, a data collection tool to survey students on various topics, a place for students to comment on the learning that took place in the class that day (exit ticket), as well as a way to provide links to relevant information for further study.
The students' blogs could be utilized in many ways as well. Student written assignments could be displayed on their blog. Additionally, students could conduct research and house the links to their findings on their blogs. I also believe the students' blogs are a wonderful place to ask them to reflect on that day's learning or any topic they feel connects to the class. Finally, students' opinions regarding in-class readings or opinions based on readings they have conducted in connection to the class would be welcomed on their blog. I would encourage my students to find a way to productively use all of the features a blog has to offer in order to enrich their blogging experience.
No comments:
Post a Comment