One thing I have thought a lot about lately is making our class blog public. Everyone I talk to has a public blog and the ones you search for on the Internet have so many visitors from all over the world.
I went to a course at Ulearn on "A tweet for a teacher" and now I can say with pride I am on twitter!! Not to tweet what I am watching on t.v or where I am but tweeting as PLN. I have already make connections with a teacher in Auckland who has made a comment on our class blog... they are studying the same topic this term.... there's a huge pro for making blogs public!!!
Other Pros...
an authentic audience, comments from a range of people, making new connections across the globe, making our posts meaningful....
Cons...
???? Are there any???
I know some people think you should not put names next to photos, problems with parents viewing other children's work.... are these real problems? In todays world with facebook, twitter, youtube faces and names are all over the place. Are we being too protective?
I would LOVE to know your thoughts.... make a comment.... a thought-provoking comment :)
I agree Marcelle - My view is that the internet is a place we ALL visit now and we are obliged to teach our children the safety strategies associated with navigating around the internet in much the same way as we taught them about road safety! We all go in cars but not without putting on our seat belts! So - we should all be able to have public blogs -just not without being able to authorise any comments left on our e-journals first!
ReplyDeleteI really like the idea of making the journals public. I think with writing we are always talking about audience and what better way to show an audience than having it available for a wide range of people to view. We are still educating parents to go on and view the blogs and leave messages. I know that when other teachers leave a comment my students get a real buzz. How much more of a buzz would they get seeing a message from a teacher in another city or country? This could also be another talking point that gets parents onto the blog as their kids go home saying a teacher in Auckland really liked what I did with my topic work this work...I also think it is a great way to connect with people and fantastic for authentic topic work. Looking at celebrations how cool would it be to be connected with an Indiain school and seeing what they do to celebrate Diwali or a Chinese school to look at the Chinese New Year. Or an American school to compare and contrast our Halloween celebrations. Students would be able to come up with questions to pose to other students encouraging an inquiry approach to learning made possible through the use of ICT. I guess it is just like what you and Marcus were talking about in today's staff meeting about using the resources we do have available. Are we using them to their full potential? Are we overlooking potential avenues that could work really well for our students?
ReplyDeleteDon't our children already have an authentic audience - their family, friends,class mates and teachers. Should we not be encouraging/ helping these people to comment on their blogs.The children do get a buzz when they recieve a comment. I wonder if it would be as much of a buzz if it is from someone they don't know? Just thinking out loud.
ReplyDeleteHowever I can see the possible benefits of making our class blogs public and then the children could experience connecting with another school as Danielle mentioned in her comment. Maybe setting up pen pals or a sister school could work too.
Myra I agree that if we are to make our blogs public then we need to be able to read the post before allowing it on our pages. There is a setting in blogger that allows for this.
ReplyDeleteYes Gwynneth I see your point that their family is their intended audience, but I feel that we have encouraged, supported and even tried to teach the families to comment on the children's blogs, but it's not working as effectively as we had hoped. I would really like to make my blog public as I want the feedback and discussion on my posts. We are all busy and it's difficult to comment on each others, I understand that, but I feel that what I put on my page is slightly pointless unless there is discussion that goes with it, otherwise is it not just pretty work with no audience? I wonder if the children feel the same???? That's how I sometimes feel about the children's blogs and posts being private. If no one comments wheres the discussion and further reflection, what is the purpose??
Hmmm this is going to become a bit of a debate i think! Personally i am all for opening them up to the world. Public versus private is an issue that we all struggle with in the new world of social media. But i think the purpose of our blogs is to share our thinking and learning with others. We have started with in class buddies and classroom buddies, and the children get so excited seeing thier comments, so i can only imagine thier reactions if they got feedback from someone in America or Japan! im all for it, why not trial it and see how it goes?
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