What's being blogged about
Reece left a comment the other day that I thought I’d try and answer.
I’m also wondering which “subject area teachers†are using blogs other than in English since blogging is primarily writing.
Well let’s see…after a quick look at our school’s blog site here’s what I found:
Pudong 4th Grade Blog (A group blog written by all our 4th graders)
Why Don’t Need School on Monday
We don’t need school on Monday. There are several reasons why we don’t need school on Monday. My first reason is it’s hard to wake up. Kids get in trouble by waking up late. My second reason is kids need rest. …
Tukey is a country located in the southern part of Europe. Unfortunatly for Turkey’s sake their country is located on top of two plate boundaries. When a place is located in plate boundaries there is a lot of movement of the plates which causes earthquakes and volcanoes.
Earthquakes in Seattle, Washington
Seattle receives earthquakes is because it is beside two plate boundaries which are the North American plate and the Juan de Fuca plate. From time to time, when the two plate boundaries slip past each other, they create earthquakes! In America,…
Fast, Fun Facts (Not an Assignment)
Did you know that…
1. Listerine mouthwash is 22% ethanol. Alternate energy cars can run on ethanol. So, if you used enough of it, you could use Listerine to run your car. It would also make it smell good!
2. You can not fold any one piece of paper seven times. It may seem untrue, but try it out before you assume!
Toa’s Troop (5th Grade Teacher)
Mars here we come! You
are leaving all you have ever known behind, your friends, job,
everything, and you are going to some new place in the stars. Remember
to write in character and try and give honest reflections to how you may
feel in this exciting time….
There it is the rarest toad in the world! Its the chinese staring toad!
Visiting Author (Not an Assignment)
Today a great author came to our school. His name is Eric A. Kimmel. He told us about the books he wrote like Beowulf and how he disagreed with his illustrator to write it. He thought there was too much violent stuff. Like on one part a monster called Grendal was invading and Beowulf ripped his arm off. But he still wrote the book. He had amazing stories….
So that took me about 30 minutes to find some great blogs on our site. I will say that we are getting more and more spam blogs so maybe 50 or so out of the 560 we have are spam blogs. Does anyone know a plugin for WordPressMU to stop this?
I wish I had other data that Reece asks for, like how often to students post or what blogs are most frequently updated, but I don’t. If someone knows of a WordPressMU plugin to monitor this let me know.
Here’s the really interesting part. Reece states:
I understand that blogs are great for journaling, reflecting and sharing one’s own ideas but to be honest, I don’t know of any subject other than English (and now IT) that includes journaling within its curriculum.
The funny part is…I don’t know of one English, Language Arts, or other ‘writing class’ that are using blogs. Of course the elementary blogs are always about writing, but only a couple posts have been actual writing in the sense of students posting class writing assignments or poems on their blogs. I hadn’t realized that until now. There might be some LA classes that are using blogs but not to my knowledge. The great part about these blogs is look at the writing that is happening in other curriculum areas. Science, Math, Art, and that’s not counting the countless postings that are not even assignments from teachers, just students posting because they can, because they want to, and because it’s fun. What more reason do you need than that?
[tags]sas blogging[/tags]
Technorati Tags: blogging, education, 21st Century Learning, jeffutecht
This question sort of reminds me of a question the guidance counselor asked at my school yesterday. “Who is using integrated curriculum in their classroom?” The great thing about web 2.0 applications is that the classroom teacher is able to ride the spectrum of curriculum subjects all rolled up into one. My last project, prior to leaving the classroom to take my new job, consisted of a digital story or podcast answer the question: “How can you as an individual use the Three R’s to help keep the environment safe?” Through classroom instruction and research they were learning topics in Science and Geography, throw in the scripting for language arts and the data they had to compile for math. All in one project. Blogging was the next step in my classroom journey and I’m sure it would have been much of the same.
Hey Jeff – I was excited to see your post today and your links to your various classroom blogs. I teach at a k-12 school in Portland, Maine and we, too, have a 4th & 5th Grade blog (http://wayn45.learnerblogs.org/). Right now we run it as a club for any interested students – I can’t wait to show them your blog. We haven’t done as much reading of blogs in that club but I think we’ll start with yours and start to work on our commenting.
Jeff,
You might wnat to check out this plugin and see if it helps resolve your Sblog issues in WordPressMU:
http://wpmudev.org/project/WPMU-Captcha-for-registration
Be sure to follow the “See here” link and read how others have resolved some of the issues that came up. I have to add that I have not tried this plugin out myself.
Brian
http://bumpontheblog.etowns.net
Check out:
http://www.ibpsychology.com
a blog about preparing for IB psych exams…
and http://www.poetry.saswire.com
home of the SAS poetry competition…
and the carrot revolution:
http://carrotrevolution.blogspot.com/
about art, education and more…
You know, Jeff—one of the first things that popped into my mind when I read your post was that English/Language Arts really isn’t a subject at all. Instead, it is a set of skills that one uses to learn and explore different subjects.
The disconnect in traditional schools where subjects are taught in isolation has brought us to a point where teachers view blogs and wikis as “language arts skills,” rather than as tools that can help students to explore content across the curriculum—and that’s sad!
My students have been blogging and podcasting this year in our science and social studies classroom and they are jazzed by the opportunity. All of our posts are voluntary, yet we’ve had well over 100 recordings/posts since we started back in October.
Absolutely the best thing I’ve ever done in my content driven classroom….
Thanks for pushing my thinking,
Bill