One of the sub-questions that I wanted to investigate in this project was how my special learners in the classroom would be affected. I wanted to know if they would participate more through the use of the blog than they did in a regular class discussion. Also, if their comfortability with sharing their thoughts would increase through the use of the blogs.
Throughout the project I saw my special learners consistently being a part of the discussion. The majority of them submitted as many posts as the other students and often they were quite nicely done. Students that would previously shy away from raising their hand to share in class wrote their thoughts on the blog. Students that had been off-task in the classroom before during classroom discussions were no longer off-task. Rather, they were involved with the blog.
Even better I saw students that often struggled with writing during class do much better by posting on the blog. Although this was not true of all my special learners it was certainly true of most of them.
Another group of students who I really saw blossom through the use of the blogs are those in between students. The ones who don't qualify for special education, who are not receiving esl services, but yet who have issues of some kind or another. These are the students who lack the best home environments, who may goof off in class rather than paying attention because there is no follow through at home. These students by and large transformed into different learners. They became involved in their learning in the classroom through the use of the blog.
Also within these sub-populations I saw a lot of growth from the start of the project to the end. The posts went from being one sentence to being a paragraph. They took more interest in making sure they were submitting something that was quality work. Wow!
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Where did the time go?
Wow. I have been so busy blogging with my classes that I totally lost track of coming on here to update everyone! Things have been going great. The students quickly grasped how the site works for posting, commenting, editing posts, etc. After talking about what a quality post looked like and comparing it to the same writing rubric that we used during the writing portion of the project the classes had a much clearer picture of what was expected. Also, it really improved their writing.
We went onto learning how to post a picture and talked about what kinds of pictures should be posted. We focused on using pictures that supported your point of view or that strenghthened your argument. They really enjoyed being able to post pictures.
The debate about global warming continued to grow over the last two weeks. We looked at evidence from both sides of the argument. We talked about why you should look at many sources of data, not just one. I was really pleased to see that they were becoming much more critical in their thinking. They were searching for sources that supported their side of the argument, i.e. skeptic or believer. They posted graphs and links that showed data that was related.
The interest level continued to be really high. Every day that we spent blogging the classes were excited about it. They wanted to continue. When I told them last week that we would have to draw this project to an end soon they were incredibly disappointed. That is what prompted the discussion and posts about why we should continue blogging. This also gave me the idea to think about how we could continue to use the blogs in the regular classroom, outside the topic of global warming. I encouraged them to think about ideas too!
We went onto learning how to post a picture and talked about what kinds of pictures should be posted. We focused on using pictures that supported your point of view or that strenghthened your argument. They really enjoyed being able to post pictures.
The debate about global warming continued to grow over the last two weeks. We looked at evidence from both sides of the argument. We talked about why you should look at many sources of data, not just one. I was really pleased to see that they were becoming much more critical in their thinking. They were searching for sources that supported their side of the argument, i.e. skeptic or believer. They posted graphs and links that showed data that was related.
The interest level continued to be really high. Every day that we spent blogging the classes were excited about it. They wanted to continue. When I told them last week that we would have to draw this project to an end soon they were incredibly disappointed. That is what prompted the discussion and posts about why we should continue blogging. This also gave me the idea to think about how we could continue to use the blogs in the regular classroom, outside the topic of global warming. I encouraged them to think about ideas too!
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Reflecting on Blogging
We again spent the 28th blogging. I wanted to keep going while the interest was high. The first thing I did was showed them how to go back in and edit a previous post. We talked about the importance of categories and students went back to add categories to their posts. Then we looked at some more information about the greenhouse effect and global warming. It is really important for them to have a better understanding of the science behind it.
Once students had looked over the link below(which was in kid-friendly language)
http://www.eo.ucar.edu/kids/green/warming4.htm
they were to write one more post about their understanding of what the greenhouse effect is and how it relates to global warming. As of right now I am only part of the way through grading their posts. My first class is one of my classes with more of the special learners. Clearly they need more help with understanding the concept and more direction with writing their posts. In retrospect I think the next time we blog I will have to give them more detail on what their post should include.
I am really glad I had them write a post on blogging in general because much of what they said about it fit right in with my predictions of how they would feel. They liked that blogs allowed them to share their feelings. Also, that everyone could posts and share at the same time whereas in a normal class dicussion only a few people are able to share. Many also thought it was fun!
It will be interesting to see how the next week goes with blogging. They now have a pretty good understanding of how it works and what is expected. Now what we need to focus on is the debate about global warming!
Once students had looked over the link below(which was in kid-friendly language)
http://www.eo.ucar.edu/kids/green/warming4.htm
they were to write one more post about their understanding of what the greenhouse effect is and how it relates to global warming. As of right now I am only part of the way through grading their posts. My first class is one of my classes with more of the special learners. Clearly they need more help with understanding the concept and more direction with writing their posts. In retrospect I think the next time we blog I will have to give them more detail on what their post should include.
I am really glad I had them write a post on blogging in general because much of what they said about it fit right in with my predictions of how they would feel. They liked that blogs allowed them to share their feelings. Also, that everyone could posts and share at the same time whereas in a normal class dicussion only a few people are able to share. Many also thought it was fun!
It will be interesting to see how the next week goes with blogging. They now have a pretty good understanding of how it works and what is expected. Now what we need to focus on is the debate about global warming!
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