I read an interesting chapter yesterday of the book, Using Blogs to Enhance Literacy, by Diane Penrod.While initially I was fairly skeptical that an elementary student would benefit from creating a blog, after reading Penrod I began to see the possibilities. Instead of reports or posters, students could create a blog of their discoveries of ancient Greece or the volcano Kīlauea. Thereby, the students would not only be learning social studies or science, but writing as well.
Writing does not come naturally for many students and oftentimes they have a hard time getting their ideas out. A computer format encourages the students to begin getting their ideas out because it is easily changed or manipulated. I have seen students who, unable to create a written piece with pencil and paper, flourish once they were in the computer lab. Blogs would also encourage the students to pay close attention to their mechanics and the factual information of their writing because of the ability for anyone to read and critique it, not just their teacher who is, unfortunately, all to often the only audience a student writes for. The chapter was overall very insightful and really got me thinking, or musing, about the possibilities. I think blogging would be a wonderful way to use my classroom's currently unused computer lab time.
I absolutely agree with what you said. I was also concerned in the beginning, but now I have also changed my mind about blogs. I really like your idea about having students write a blog inside of a report. I know from my students putting thoughts to paper is like pulling teeth for some of them. I know if they were able to type their thoughts and express themselves freely on the computer they would succeed.
ReplyDeleteWe too have canceled our computer lab time for the past 3 sessions and the only time I have observed the students using the computers in our room is to type their final copy. The students do not use the computers to compose and then edit, they do all of that writing in their writing journal (probably so it can be graded). It would be fun to try this at the school and see how the students react.
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