As I continue to embark on this new (for me) blogging journey, through extensive research, thinking, and collaboration I have developed the following goals for my blog. Any comments or suggestions are highly welcomed.
- Since I am still very new to blogging I would like to continue to use this blog as a place where educators can share their ideas, thoughts, and experiences with classroom blogging. One of my goals is to create a classroom blog and teach my students how to use it. Currently I have a few eighth graders who tell me that they enjoy blogging with each other on Facebook in Italian. This knowledge has me very eager to begin implementing this at the classroom level.
- I would also like to use my blog to enhance my students’ learning experience by encouraging, and motivating them to think and learn on a global level. Knowing that the world can see their thoughts and work will inspire them to try harder and write better.
- Additionally, I would like for it to be a place where I can display students’ work. One example would be our video conversations. I would like to display the top three video conversations and have the student maybe vote for their favorite video and post (appropriate) comments on why they chose that video, in the target language.
- It should also be a place were students can go to and catch up on current events in the classroom, assignments missed when they are absent, and visit Italian practice websites to help them study and build their Italian vocabulary.
- Moreover, I would like to create a section where students can share their best studying strategies for remembering vocabulary, phrases, and grammar rules. They can also share the favorite words and phrases on this page. It can be considered their let loose page.
- Lastly, I would like to have a culture page where students and teachers can post about their experiences with Italy and the Italian culture. For example, this summer I will be spending a month traveling through Italy, therefore, I will have many new experiences to share and realia to post from my trip. My students are aware of my trip, so I would like to post pictures and videos as I travel through Italy. Current and previous students will be encouraged to comment and share their thoughts, knowledge, and experiences, as well. I can use it as a journaling page that encourages continued learning with the use of realia. I cannot bring the students to Italy so this is a great opportunity for me to bring Italy to them virtually.
I look forward to our conversations. Happy blogging! :-)
Daniela,
ReplyDeleteLove the background! Your ideas all seem very doable and the students will love them! As far as any challenges you might face, you mentioned using video conversations--would there be any posed challenges due to posting students' videos online--as far as privacy? Confidentiality and the privacy of our students is such a hurdle, in a way. It's most definitely hard to have students posting on the Internet without giving away some identifying information. I know that some of the resources we have viewed and read thus far tell us to have the students to either not put their last name, go by an alias, or use initials. But I am just wondering how you would go about maintaining privacy with a video conversation? I wonder if there is a way to make those items only viewable to a certain selection of people? I am totally new at all of this too--so I'm not sure either. On a totally different note, I bet you are excited for your trip to Italy this summer?! The students will love the realia that you bring back from that! :) Best of luck to you!
Stacy,
DeleteYou make a very good point on the posting of students video's. Like you I am also very new to blogging. I think would have to compare it to when students post on YouTube. I would have to send permission slips home to the parents and inform them of my plans and why about why and how I will be using the postings. The parents would also have access to the posts and I would probably have to have very specific privacy settings on my blog. I have not worked out all of the details yet but it is a goal of mine. Eventually I will have it all figured out. Hopefully sooner than later. Thank you for your comment.
Daniela
I really like your ideas, especially the assignments page. If a student's absent he or she can just visit the blog and get the work. The absentee could also theoretically contribute via comments during the day, if possible. :) Kristin
ReplyDeleteThank you.
DeleteYou have so many great ideas already! Teaching a foreign language would open up so many uses for blogging. I especially like your idea about the cultural page. I could see where this would get your students excited about sharing their Italian cultural experiences, or learning first hand from their peers.
ReplyDeleteI have traveled to many places in the world, but I especially loved visiting Italy and Greece. I lived in Greece for two years, and I always share about the country with my students. They love hearing stories about my travels. You will have so much to share with your students! Posting photos and videos will make your students feel like they are part of your experience.
My only question for you is how do you educate your students on appropriate blogging? Your students are much older than mine, so I know they are already texting, on Facebook, and so on. Do you show them examples of what an appropriate versus an inappropriate response is? Do you let them use slang and initials like LOL?
Janet,
ReplyDeleteThank you very much for your supportive comment! That is so great that you have traveled to those places. I love to travel but have not had the opportunity to travel to many places outside the United States except for Italy and I don't even get there as often as I would like too. Needless to say I am very excited about my trip. I have not used blogs in my classroom yet with my students. I am very new to blogging, in fact this is my very first blog. I will probably not start blogging with my students until I get a little more comfortable with it. However, when I do start blogging I would definitely have to teach them proper blogging etiquette for professional blogging because you are correct, students at this age group truly do not know what that is. I don't think I will be allowing blogging language such as, lol, omg, etc. I also think I want them to be posting their comments and conversations in the target language as much as possible. After I teach them proper posting etiquette using examples of what is and is not academic blogging language, I will set up an RSS Feed that sends me all of the posts to be previewed and approved prior to being posted to the page. This will help me to ensure that the posts are up to my standards before being posted and viewed by all. I am confident that the knowledge that once a comment is posted it is there for all to see, this will definitely give students a sense of ownership over their posts and motivate them to do their best quality work. I am always seeking new and creative ways to provide exciting and motivating lessons for my students, so I welcome your comments and suggestions. I hope I have answered your questions. Thank you for visiting my page!
Daniela
Daniela,
ReplyDeleteFor someone who has never used a Blog site before you certainly have some great ideas. You will be surprised how much your students will use your Blog site!
One suggest that I can make to you that I see has not been mentioned by others is the issue of accessibility. Do all of your students have access to the internet at home or outside of school? The reason I ask is because this is a problem that I face at my school. Most of my students have computers, but their parents are not financially able to pay for the internet. How might you face this problem? I am lucky enough to be at a school that is very rich in technology, and my students have access to the internet all day in school in almost every classroom. However, the down side of this is that I have to spend precious class time to have them respond to our class blog. I have some good ideas I would like to share with anyone about this issue, but I would like to see how you would handle this.
Tom,
DeleteThank you for your support. That is a great question and an issue that I face, as well. I find that although my students have internet access at home their parents do not always allow them to use the internet, or they have one computer for the entire family to use and many times the parents are working on it and the students are unable to use it. I usually bypass this issue by giving the students two or more days to complete a computer related assignment and I offer them the opportunity to stay after school with me and complete their assignment in the school computer lab. If I come up with a better solution I will let you know and should you find a solution would you please do the same. Thank you! Good luck to you!
Daniela
My favorite of all your many great suggestions is having a place, "where students can share their best studying strategies for remembering vocabulary, phrases, and grammar rules." I remember learning a new language as being something very difficult for me to do and maybe seeing what my classmate's strategies were would have helped me to know better strategies for learning...
ReplyDeleteAlso, in response to the discussion about the videos and student privacy, could you post an audio file of the discussion instead of a video file? That way the class would still be able to hear the target language but student identities would be more difficult to determine.
Troy17JL-
ReplyDeleteJust using the audio probably would work. Thank you for your suggestions.
Daniela