Wednesday, January 14, 2009
How will I use this blog for my students? I am most likely to use it as a forum for discussion for the days lessons. If they have any questions, they can ask me on-line. I will also use this to praise my students for their hard work! It is so easy to focus on one or two that are difficult students, when in reality we have SO many GREAT kids in our classes and we need to praise them loud and often for their hard work and effort in class. I will be checking the procedures for using student names on my blog page, as I'd like to make sure I'm following the rules with my county on the guidelines for our user policy. Perhaps first names only will be in order!
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Sara Catherine
ReplyDeleteYour blog use idea sounds great. As a suggestion to help the process run more smoothly, you might let the students know what limits you will set for the hours you will be "available". For instance, you might limit blog checking to your planning hour or extend it to a certain time each evening. Being on call 24/7 would be a very challenging responsibility. If the students' questions are urgent, blogging might not be the best forum.
I think the idea of praising your students via a blog is very good and should help keep the posts positive. You are right that we need to focus on all that is going well instead of what is not.
Sara,
ReplyDeleteYou have some good ideas for using your Blog, I like the idea of having my students be able to ask questions if they have any. I do agree with Wanda however that you need to set time limits for when it is acceptable to post and when you will be checking it to answer questions or you may have students doing it at all times of night and complaining to you when you don’t get back to them before a test or quiz even though they posted their question at 1:30 am when everyone else in the world is sleeping.
The praise is great, I love to praise my students when they do good work but it can backfire. What ever you post online could be for everyone in the whole class to see and could lead to teasing or worse for the student you praise (it happened to me when I praised a student in my class before). Maybe if you could some how make it private? Also, I would check with your district on putting students names online and if they have any guidelines for it.
Good job,
Eric
Thanks Wanda and Mr. P!
ReplyDeleteYou are so right about the times and guidelines for me being available, etc. I will work on that before I get started with my kids.
I also thank you for your comments about the posting of student achievements. Perhaps I could use class averages or the lowest number of zeros in a class or something of that nature instead of individuals.
Glad to have responses! THANKS!
Sara,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your ideas of the ways in which you plan on using your blog. I think that praising your students for valuable and quality work is an excellent way to interact with your students. Providing specific feedback to your students allows them to truly understand whether or not expectations were being made in the classroom.
Your technology teacher will probably be able to help you figure out rules and procedures regarding posting student names to your blogs. I know at my school, we have used initials as well as first name and last initial.