When reading the first three chapters I was shocked at how blogs are being integrated into education. I have never heard of this being done before. I think there are so many possibilities with having a blog integrated into a classroom and it sounds like a fantastic idea that students would certainly be interested in. I am however skeptical about school administrations accepting this idea. I think using blogs would take lots of discussion and time to get approval to use them in classrooms. Parental permission would also cause some issues, especially in the elementary grades. I liked how the book explained that many people and organizations are allowing their followers to contribute to blogs or other websites. I think it was a genius decision by President Obama to have a MySpace and Facebook because it puts him into the “real person” category. The author point to an important statistic that 97% of seventh to twelfth graders think that “technology use is important in education.” This speaks volumes about the expectations that students have in regards to technology being integrated into their classroom. If we as educators are able to bring technology into the classroom we may be able to receive a more enthusiastic group of learners. When the topic of what websites a school should block (if any) comes up I am all for the blocking of websites that could affect a student’s education in a negative way. I agree that sometimes quality information does get caught by website blocking programs, but there is always an alternative source of information available for use.
As a teacher I would consider using a blogging program as a means to interact with interested parents. Posting a schedule of what happened that day could allows parents insight to what their child has been up to. I loved the idea of the author, Sue Monk Kidd, being able to respond to the student’s reactions. The interaction between the students and author would be something to be excited about for the students and the teacher! As far as going to blogs for information I would likely discourage my students from doing so. The author provides good points for this, but I think that the information on blogs is mostly opinions rather than facts. I would not be opposed to students using links that they found on blogs for information. These chapters on blogging were informative and very thought provoking.
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