I have enjoyed using my weblog to keep in contact with various people from this course, and to stay somewhat connected to what is going on in this course. I feel that the use of a classroom based weblog would be a very effective learning tool for students. I have a classroom based calendar where I post daily homework and assignments, with the hope that the students (and parents) will be checking daily to see what is due for the following day or week. I was curious as to how many of my students actually use this site, and not one of them put up their hand. As a teacher, this was disappointing for me. At the end of every school day I will spend approx. 15-20 min, either updating this site, or emailing parents with homework that may have been missed. I will continue to do this, in the hope that someone will eventually check this site, and make use of the info that is made available to them. That is what a teacher does! Technology does open up a wide range of learning for students, the use of JING or Epearl look like interesting sites. I am glad that I have had the chance to learn and use weblogs, and hopefully I will use this tool in my classroom in the future.
October 29, 2007
October 29, 2007 at 2:14 am
Hi Jodie,
You were asking about Jing. It is a free program that you can download on to your computer. The jing program then stores your Jing clips on a web server for free to allow you to share things over the internet. It is somewhat limited in the size of files you can create but it is certainly perfect for creating 10 minute.
The price is right!
October 30, 2007 at 3:10 am
Good for you for not giving up on your student’s apprehension to use the tools that you have set up for them. I believe that is a good quality to have as a teacher. If you keep enforcing the use of the web tools I believe that your students and parents will eventually start to utilize them. That is exactly what I find frustrating as an administrator, the fact that I even want to correspond by email rather than paper has been met with some resistance. Keep trying and don’t give up!!
October 30, 2007 at 7:11 pm
Trying new things and realizing they are not being used is frustrating. That is often why teachers don’t try new things because it seems like a wasted effort. However, we try new things and some will stick and some won’t. I find with kids, you have to persuade them (with marks) to get them to use it and then after time it will just become the new way of doing business. Instead of writing dates on the board, tell them to check the google calender. It may seem like a draconian approach, but once they see the error in their ways they’ll come around!
October 31, 2007 at 1:25 am
Hi Jodie,
Are you planning to use ePearl? One of the teachers in our division used it last year with her class and another one is just waiting for me to create her students accounts so that she can use it this year. (I’m waiting for her to send me the names of her students so that I can create the accounts.) There are sure a lot of options out there for students and teachers.
November 1, 2007 at 1:31 am
I know what you mean when you mentioned that it is kind of frustrating when no one looks at your blog. Just to assure you that I check your blog everyday for new material.