I’ve been doing quite a bit of thinking around the plausibility of incorporating blogging in classrooms. The idea first struck me while catching up on my Biology skills with The Learning Channel on SABC 3 just the other day. I figure, if interactive television can have such a profound impact on learning, why shouldn’t the next phase of technology? To partly answer my own question, I understand that many disadvantaged learners do not have ready access to the internet, so this is obviously a stumbling block, but internet access is becoming a reality for more people across a wider demographic every day.
But I digress. The real reason I’m posting is to direct you to a fantastic St. Petersburg Times Online article published on the 9 Aug. The article tells the story of Pinellas Park Elementary School, whose Fifth Grade teacher, Mr. Roemer, encourages his learners to write about their day’s learning online.
The really exciting part is the response of the parents, who are able to read and respond to their children’s online postings on a daily basis, “I liked knowing what was going on in class, seeing what they were doing, what they were learning, just knowing my daughter was in a safe place,” Joyce Schubert, a mother of one of Mr. Roemer’s ‘Polar Bears’, says.
I see huge potential in this space. Blogs open portals for a new kind of “shared learning” that includes parents, teachers and learners on an even plane. Parent’s evenings happen every evening. Children leave the physical classroom to tackle homework, and when they struggle with a really difficult problem post it online and work through it collaboratively. The possibilities are endless. Why not vlog individual lessons?
What are some of your thoughts / ideas?
Blogging in the classroom
