Participant: Mitch Fowler
Session title: Learn to Blog: Blog to Learn
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What were the main points made during this session, the "takeaways?" |
| I really felt that there were two main points to this presentation: 1. In order to blog effectively, one needs to present and model the blog slowly to the kids 2. Blogging requires several levels of Bloom's Taxonomy to be meaningful and worthwhile.
The first main point that I took away (modeling and presenting first) was one that I really need to work on as a teacher who uses blogs. For the past two years I have been so excited to get kids creating, collaborating, sharing, and commenting, that I think I've flown over some main points of blogging. In her presentation, I thin Anne's Webquest was amazing. I think I will have my kids work on this next year before we start. I think the time that could be spent working on this Webquest would definitely outweigh some of my introductory blogging activities. In addition, upon completion of the Webquest, I think the kids would understand how the blog is built upon the same foundations of our writing class as opposed to simply a fun way to post what you're thinking about.
The second main point (using Bloom's Taxonomy) really struck a chord in me. During the summer I corresponded with several teacher who use blogging. One of our main conversations was about how to take blogging to the next step. How do we get our kids to do something with the blog that they couldn't do in class... or don't do in class. One of the answers to this question may be using Bloom's Taxonomy more often in constructing questions and posts on the blog. I really liked the ribbons that Anne had on her Rock You slide show on the Bloom's Taxonomy wiki. I think that I may try to recreate these ribbons for my class.
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What questions did you have after this presentation? |
| One of my main questions I still have is HOW? How can some of these teachers get their kids writing at such a high level. I was absolutely blown away by the students from JHH and their interpretation of the 6 Traits of Writing. The writing was composed at an amazing level. The Conventions were great, the Sentence Fluency was amazing, and the Ideas (or message) was crystal clear.
I wondered to what extent some of the teachers were modeling this writing. In other words, since these kids were ESL students, did they follow a writing template or did this type of writing just come to them? |
In terms of your own professional development, what did you gain from the session? |
| This session was amazing. Where to I begin. As mentioned, I will be making some changes to the way I initiate blogging next year. Next year, I plan to use Anne's Webquest. Specifically, I will focus on using Bloom's Taxonomy to improve not only my post's questions, but the comments that my students leave. Speaking of comments... another great part of this session was on how to teach your kids how to leave comments. I am often frustrated by the amount of "Nice job!"s or "Cool story!" comments that I have in my class. While it is nice for students to leave positive feedback, I think that they could provide more specific, thought provoking feedback.
In addition to the former, I have also found a ton of great blogs to link to. These blogs will serve as anchors for my students. Not only will my students be able to reference the outstanding writing on the classroom blogs mentioned by Anne, they will be able leave comments and interact with the outstanding writers. |
How will you apply the learning to your professional situation? |
| The good news about this session is that Anne has set it up so that experienced bloggers can use Step 2: Slidshare Show - Learn to Blog as a great resource for teaching other teachers how to blog.
I can see myself using the guidelines and steps in this session to introduce other staff members to blogging. Due to the well organized, common terms used by Anne, I think most teachers will be able to see the value of blogs.
One goal I would like to set here is to have at least one other teacher using blogs by the end of the school year. With Anne's tools, I believe I can achieve that goal! |
What other resources (including reading material) are relevant to this session? |
| All of Anne's resources:
- Blogmeister
- PB Wiki
- Leaning to Blog Webquest
- Rock You - slide show presenter
- MS Word Handouts (Especially the comment starters)
- Wordpress.com
- Will Richardson's Blog - www.weblog-ed.com
- Anything from Wes Fryer
- Gcast.com (Great resource for sharing and hosting podcasts)
- Youtube and teachertube |
External reflection link: |