I teach Italian 3 & 4 and Spanish 1.
Since this is my first experience with blogging I wanted this blog to be a place where I could post the activities and strategies that I use in class and get feedback, examples, and strategies from other teachers. I have a school web page where I can post homework assignments so I felt that I would use this as a place to share and receive ideas from other educators or anyone who has an idea regarding world language. I can see where teachers can use blogs as a place to post student work and have students post discussions in a way students feel is fun. Once I get more familiar with blogging and understand the teacher controls that are available to protect students from inappropriate posts I think I will start a classroom blog. I shared with my students that I created a blog for the first time and they were very excited. Anything that can get a classroom filled with high school students excited about writing is worth a try.Ciao
I'm with you. I need to understand the controls better before I officially begin allowing this to be a part of my daily activities. My only concern about asking all of my coworkers for help would be some of them potentially looking down on me. We have a few negative Nancys at our school that can be a real fun killer. I enjoyed reading your post.
ReplyDeleteI am doing the same thing. I started a classroom blog over the summer but I'm not actively using it with my students yet. I kind of want to figure it all out first so I don't feel like my kids know a ton more than I do!
ReplyDeleteAs far as writing - my biggest obstacle to that is that my students constantly write in IM speak - no capitalization, punctuation, abbreviations, etc., even when they are just sending me emails. I don't want that on my blog since it reflects back on me! Have you thought through how you are going to grade their participation - will it be number of posts, or content, or both?
Hi Chris,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post. It is unfortunate that "negative Nancys" are everywhere. I just try to look past all the negative stuff and try to do things that I find new and exciting. I guess that is why blogging is a good thing,It's open to everyone not just the negative Nancys of the world.
Ciao
Hi Tracey,
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting. Good question. No I haven't really thought through the grading system yet. I still have to speak to the administration and find out how the teacher controls work etc. But I guess I would set up a rubric which will include a combination of content and number of posts.
I also get the IM speak from my students I just keep reminding them that there is a time and place to use that "language".
Ciao