It is amazing how far blogs have come in the last 5 years. It seems that everyone has a blog with something to say. It has really changed how we communicate and get information. Now, the important part is to have the ability to determine what is fact and what is opinion or fiction. Our students need to learn this skill. It is a similar to the debate about Wikipedia. Blogs also have the power to influence people. I think it is important that we also teach our students responsibility when it comes to blogging.
Friday, July 16, 2010
Facilitating Collaboration - Week 1
Blogs. Lots of info about blogs this week. I recall when I first heard about blogs. I wondered why anyone would be interested in what I had to say. It wasn't until about 2 years ago that I started using it in my job to communicate with teachers and staff. Since then almost all of our teachers have some sort of way to electronically communicate with their students. Some use a blog, some use Moodle, and some have used Google Sites to create their own classroom web site.
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It is great how well your district is using these technologies. We have some teachers who do and are really starting pushing it now. My building has many veteran teachers afraid of technology, so it is a uphill battle. Slowly progress is being made. We just hired a new principal, I have met with him and he seems to be very supportive of using technologies and wants teachers to use them so I have hope!!
ReplyDeleteThe fact or fiction issue is a tough one no matter the age. The "I read it so it must be true" battle is just beginning as more and more classroom teachers embrace the integration of technology and the internet. Our school, in an attempt to concretely demonstrate for our students that everything on the internet is not always complete or accurate, is beginning a long term, school wide project of putting our 150 year history on Wikipedia. This should take several years and will involve grades four through eight. Not only will this create pride in ownership of the project for our students, but they will come to appreciate how information can get published electronically.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely - fact vs fiction is the biggest threat to the online world! The students will believe anything we tell them or anything they read unless we teach them the skills to find out the truth! I guess this is where recommending sources on the teachers half comes into play. If we can find the moment to get a student interested then we need to make sure that the student is well informed as well and we have to take the approval of certain sites seriously when it comes to this topic.
ReplyDeleteAs a classroom teacher I can continue to preach the check your sources are they reliable, but next year one of my biggest supports for this, my library media specialist, will only see my kids about once a month. In the age of digital citizens I am struggling with the thought that some students may not get the message. (Not all teachers are comfortable enough to teach their students about how to evaluate websites, they thought that was the library media specialists job.)
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