Monday, July 7, 2008

Weblogs in Education Reflection

After watching the short film Weblogs in Education by Will Richardson, I started thinking even more about how I could use blogs in my classroom. As I previously posted, I think online discussions can be a great tool to get students involved. But what I hadn't thought of was how they would react to having their ideas published online. One of the students in the video who was part of an online discussion about the book The Secret Lives of Bees, expressed excitement at the thought of people googleing that particular book, and coming across the words she had written. And although I'm sure there are some students who would be a little nervous knowing that their thoughts and ideas would be available for anyone to see, I think most students would have same reaction the girl in video did at seeing their work published.

I could also relate to Richardson when he said something along the lines of, how we have to accept that students often know more about technology then we do. And I think that this is an important idea, because education is very much a two way street. I learn from my students all the time, and I think that if they feel comfortable teaching me what they know, then they are more responsive to what I teach them.

1 comment:

B-EZ said...

You are right, I teach English and I see this as very useful. Although some students may be intimidated by the idea, I think the majority would appreciate the technology and find the assignments more relevant for that purpose alone.