Class Reflections

Pedagogy of Weblogs by Will Richardson is a great article for making connections! The very first paragraph talks about weblogs as “an attractive addition to the teacher’s toolbox.” The teacher’s toolbox …this is a toolbox full of strategies and tools that enhance student learning. What better  way to describe the purpose of instructional technology. Instructional technology, to me, is the study of instructional strategies and tools that accelerate learning. Effective teachers collect many different strategies and tools knowing that they need to store these techniques in their “toolbox” so they are prepared to react in a positive manner to changes in the classroom environment…changes that necessitate changes in instructional strategies. Effective teachers know they cannot use the same techniques day after day. They know they cannot spend 90 minutes in lecture mode and find optimal learning occurring. They know students need time to process information every 10 to 20 minutes. So they need a handful (or more) of varied strategies for presenting information and engaging their students.

The article continues….”weblogs are truly a constructivist tool for learning.” To blog, students have to create. ..they have to read and write…create and critique and, in many cases, collaborate. Their audience extends beyond the classroom so now their creations and comments gain a new relevance. They can communicate and collaborate with other students all over the world. Teachers can use blogs to promote all levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy of higher order thinking including critical and analytical thinking. By posting online readings, a teacher can ask his/her students to read and react to the readings…or the teacher can ask students to post “their ideas and opinions about topics discussed in class” or write comments and opinions about “daily news items or issues of interest.” All of these activities can encourage student levels of thinking beyond the simple recall of facts and information.  But Richardson maintains that blogging is something more than just posting writings and comments. It’s all about connective writing…nonlinear writing…including links to analytical comments and writings that are related but also extend the topic being discussed.  The Secret Life of Bees blog includes links to class questions to the author and the author’s responses as well as a link to amazon.com where you can read many reviews of the book.

Richardson also talks about the value of blogging as an archiving tool. As you read through “Meredith’s Page!”, you see an online archive of all of her work required for her journalism class.

As Richardson states in his article, “Blogging can teach critical reading and writing skills, and it can lead to greater information management skills. I can help students become much more media and information literate by clarifying the choices the make about the content they write about, and it teaches them about how networks function, both human and computer, and it can teach the essential skill of collaboration.” I think Richardson has summarized very nicely some of the key skills we all will need in this twenty-first century. And these include many of the same skills outlined in NETS for Students – The Next Generation…creative thinking, communicating and collaborating, and analyzing and evaluating (Bloom terms!)

I thought Ricahrdson’s ideas for scaffolding blogging through the various school ages was realistic and helpful. His scaffolding plan follows Bloom’s order of thinking skills as he describes relevant activities for elementary, middle and high school level students. One of his suggestions for high school level students is to “synthesize readings from a number of different sources, and advance new ides or interpretations of the topic (Bloom and NETS!)

Richardson’s article is filled with different ideas for using blogging in the classroom.  It is a great resource for learning about the potential of weblogs as an effective instructional strategy to be stored in the teacher’s toolbox!