Call me old-fashioned but I still believe that the basics are necessary. Today's 'texting' generation is learning to use every acronym possible but cannot write a proper sentence with spelling and punctuation. Will paper ever go out of style? I love my computer but there is still comfort in paper and pen.
However, I do believe in balance. Teach the basics for the purpose of using technology today and in the future. No one knows exactly what the future holds but having a basic skill set with serve students for whatever lies ahead.
Before these readings and the course, I took little interest in blogs. I considered myself to be a 'techie' but in my opinion, blogs were just the personal rants of nothingness and everyday minutia. At least the ones that I visited.
In my search for educational blogs, some read like school or classroom newsletters. They were not current and were summaries of past or upcoming events. These seem to be more like school webpages. One school actually had photos from the lost and found on it. Not exactly cutting edge material.
After visiting some other well-designed blogs and after creating my own, I have discovered that with very little knowledge and effort, you can create a clever looking blog in minutes that can reflect your personality. It is an effort to resist rants, on occasion. Some blogs are informative, provide the latest technological articles, and provide for interaction with surveys, comments and other forms of participation.
With students, I believe blogs can be a valuable and free form to extend classroom learning and combine valuable communication opportunities. It may not be face-to-face communication, but it is a method to communicate with a greater audience and extend into the community and beyond. A student can express themself with images, audio, writing and gadgets to reflect their own personality. In multicultural classrooms, this is a great tool to represent a student's background and experience. With today's focus on literacy and numeracy, blogs can be a great tool to promote reading and writing. It is okay to express and opinion, but listening to the ideas of others is also a great skill that needs to be improved. Blogging can bring the classroom experience into the daily lives of students. It can help make the information relevant for students and promote furhter understanding.
As with any technology, students need controls, structure and monitoring. The Internet allows the world at our fingertips but it also brings us to the world. Students need to be informed of the dangers of revealing too much information, the power of the words they write when anyone can access it, and the people that may be seeking to build a trusting relationship for their own personal gain. We still teach kids backup educational skills such as the dangers of playing with fire, the importance of swimming with a partner, and not talking to strangers. Internet safety now has to be a part of the discussion. Perhaps this is a a new backup skill? We would not let our children go off into a crowd of strangers without watching them. Why would we allow them on the WWW without watching? Children need the safety of limits and supervision. Parents and teachers can serve a valuable role in guiding and monitoring students while allowing for individual expression and creativity.
Blogs, in short, give students a voice. Instead of journaling, the students are now interacting with peers as they comment, question, and react to what is being written. If we can get students to reflect and express themselves in writing outside of school, then we have succeeded in making the curriculum relevant to the everyday lives of students.
