Blogging has undoubtedly exponentially increased opportunities for teachers to learn from each other. I remember having to read an article, a piece of "summer" reading for this program, about the importance of professional development and collaboration with colleagues in the teaching profession. You really can't be a teacher and not be committed to also being a lifelong learner. I think this class makes that very transparent. The sheer number of technology tools available for educational purposes today speaks to the ways in which how we teach and how our students learn is constantly changing. I see blogging as a tool that serves teachers needs as lifelong learners and collaborative professionals.
There is evidence of this in the various blogs I have been flipping through lately. Yesterday, I spent some time reading English teacher Dana Huff's blog. She has a fascinating post titled "Tales from Writing Workshop," in which she shares stories about her students workshopping their first essay of the school year. From reading her post, I learned that she uses Google Docs in her classroom as a workshop tool. She is able to check her students' revision histories to see not only the number of edits a student makes, but the substance of those edits. As a future English teacher, I think it is so cool that she is able to see so much of her students' writing process. In this post, she also mentions how some of her students took it upon themselves, without her asking, to make suggested edits on their classmates essays. To me, that kind of classroom is a true human learning collective. I am interested in hearing more from her about how she integrates writing workshops into her classroom and so I commented on that post, and in doing so have opened up a conversation among professionals!
I did something similar in response to a post on Nick Provenzano's teaching blog. Nick recently wrote a post about something called #20 Time that happens at his school. From what I gathered from reading his post, #20 Time involves students planning individual projects that they will work on for the school year. He included the list of this year's student project ideas and I was instantly so excited. The ideas ranged from taking pictures all over Grosse Pointe to capture the high points to writing a musical. Project-based learning is something I can see working well with my students at TCEC, though I am not sure how I would implement this approach in that setting or any school setting. I commented on Nick's post asking him about how he implements project-based learning into his classroom. I am looking forward to his response and learning more about the #20 Time project.
sam kohl!
ReplyDeleteyo i commented on the same post! it was in part about a workshop, a sort of humdrum topic, because who's unaware of how a workshop goes? however, we mostly take the efficacy of such events as workshops for granted. sure, some students may say that the workshop was helpful and that they gained insights by attending, but there's no way to tell if they re being honest. the editing tracker, however, seems to provide some proof of the workshop's efficacy. it looks like the student with the exemplary piece helped out another student who was struggling. so, the post unveiled to me yet another wonderful embedded in docs. i love docs more and more every day. not only can students collaborate remotely, but their actions can be observed. one risk here, though, is that collaboration over docs might facilitate cheating / plagiarism. who knows though?
I felt the same! When we are directed to review an Edublog, I am blown away by the content, creativity, and most of all time to add it to the already demanding teaching profession. Superhumans?!!! The ability to collaborate with other professionals and receive prompt feedback is exceptional. The math content shared through blogs has covered so many topics that I had hoped to learn in the SEC MAC program. Discipline-focused ideas that can be applied directly, rather than learning about a great idea that is presented in another discipline and trying to make it connect to math. The #20 Time project expresses a great concept of connectivity throughout the year. One tip from my tech findings, when you like a blogger, follow the tweet and great ideas will become available without searching. Thanks for sharing
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