I’ve found that blogging is an excellent way to inspire students to freely express themselves. In addition to their exposure to free verse and critical thought, blogging allows them to utilize technology to reach like-minded cohorts who may or may not share their same interests or who would like to politely express an oppositional thought. The Web 2.0 tool http://write4.net/en enables students to do just this.
This publishing tool is as easy as the disclaimer states that it is. Students are introduced to not only blogging, but also Twitter. A twitter account is needed for students to be able to publish their thoughts to the masses. This is a plus because Twitter is one of the few social networking sites that are not blocked by the district. This makes this application an asset for the classroom teacher.
A lesson plan that could be used weekly for this application would be quite simple. Students would use write4net to express their feelings on the headline of the day on the local news. They could access this information via the Internet or traditionally via the television. A set word count would be established at the beginning of the first initial offering and would remain the standard throughout the course. The skill set would include the following:
(1) Signing up for an email account using yahoo or Google mail.
(2) Signing up for a twitter account.
(3) Signing up for a write4net account.
After these requirements are met, the students would blog weekly and the instructor would give feedback via the blog interface.
O.K.I agree. There is some research that shows that texting and blogging is learing to incresed writing skills with adolescent learners. There is a way to make Blogger into a collaborative blog for you and your students. Just look their documentation. Keep in mind that Write4Net runs through the Twitter client. Will students need a Twitter account. Look into all this. The platform looks fun and engaging.
ReplyDeleteAlso, look through your EBSCO databases. I just found many many articles related to blogging and teaching. You might get more ideas to refine the scope of your AR project even more.
ReplyDeleteDonna,
ReplyDeleteI love the ideas which can be used with this Web 2.0 tool. I am going to use it with an 8th grade class. Thanks for sharing.
I like the idea of the local news responses in that this assignment would pull different content areas together. It could be a collaborative assignment with English, Social Studies, Health and Physical Education as well as others as they are linked to the students and their community through news events. In addition, community members and parents could be involved in responding to your students posts, which brings a real world aspect and motivates the students to engage with the material as they write for a real world audience. Fantastic idea for this tool! Is in free? Keep me posted if you try it. I would love to hear about the results!
ReplyDelete