Bobby's-Blogging and Mentoring Experience
1. What do you see as excellent features?
-There are many excellent features to this blogging exercise, for example, the ongoing feedback on your written work. I enjoyed putting my completed work on the web and getting feedback from the people who took time out to read it. Another good feature is that we get to make a website/blog site of our own. We can design it with whatever we like, that helps with ownership and students love to feel like they are in control. It is also a good feature for students who do not like to talk in class; this gives them to voice their opinions without ever having to open their mouths in a classroom setting.
2. What do you want to see changed or revised?
-I liked how we did the classroom activity, but after the fourth or fifth week we were basically doing the same thing as the week before. I think we can finish that up quicker and start something new and different. I also think that the assignments we did in week eight, should be scattered throughout the whole blogging experience. If we mad a link at the beginning when we were designing our blog, then we could add our project there each week. Also, I think if we were required to find the websites a little earlier it would not be such a hassle at the end. I have noticed that some of the groups haven’t even put five websites up, let alone twenty-five.
3. What do you believe does not belong in the blog?
-The last point of that paragraph brings me to a problem, do we even need the links to websites, and what is there purpose? I liked finding websites and I used them for my teaching and learning tool, but I noticed a lot of people did not use them. I see how it could benefit the student if used properly, but we only had them assigned at the end of the blogging experience. If we had them throughout the experience it might have held a better purpose.
4. What do you want to see added to enhance the blog?
-As one of mentors told me in a comment a couple of weeks ago, I think we should add pictures to enhance the graphics of our blog. My mentor told me we would be, but we were never assigned. I think pictures and graphics would enhance the blog greatly. I also think that if we add more posting like “life as an undergrad” we would get more student participation. If students are writing more about their experiences and assignments and are also reading about others, then they can get more feedback and evaluation from them.
5. Please comment on the quality of blog components and features:
-I think the interactions between my mentors and me was wonderful, they gave me a lot of helpful advice when it came to my classroom activity. They usually responded at the end of the week, but who can blame them with their full-time jobs. Nevertheless, the feedback they gave me was wonderful, right to the point, and extensively useful. The interactions between the students were good as well, but the were more informative of how they liked our projects, not really on tips or hints to help us. But they were building and constructing their own projects and they were in no position to be giving advice. However they saw other people ideas and got to build off of it as I did with the group members of the blogs I was enrolled in. I think all except one blog site had nothing but words. One site had pictures and different color letters in each of their post. My blog was basic and straight to the point. But I would like to have had some pictures. I think the content of the blogs were very extensive and concise. They showed each student projects, classroom activities, and their personal life. I think that the students really enjoyed writing about their weeks and telling other students how their school classes were going.
6. What stands out from this blogging and mentoring experience for you?
-I really enjoyed getting feedback on my classroom activity and my assignments. The mentors and teachers were very helpful and genuinely caring to our classroom activities. They were very patient with us and gave us helpful hints to better our blogs. I also enjoyed reading about fellow students week, was it bad or good, what did they do exciting, or how is their schoolwork coming along. It was nice to read how other people are dealing with the same things I am. I really liked how other people would post their assignments and I could look at theirs and judge how good mine is doing (most of the time, the others were better).
7. How did you see yourself functioning initially in this context? Did that change as the experience progressed?
-When I first started the blogging experience, I thought it would be a waste of time, but once I started to put my classroom activity together and get helpful feedback, I warmed up to it real quick. I had the same goals each week, to do the posting, comments, and maintain responses to the comments. This part did not change, just my mind set about the project.
8. What role should teacher and students have in a blogging experience?
-I think the teacher should take the role of guiding the student in the process of their classroom activity. Help with forming ideas, constructing a better blog, and facilitate the flow of the blogging experience. I also think the teacher should have a blog of their own, where the students can follow along and know what assignments are do. I think the teacher should lead by example, and allow the students to leave comments in the particular areas they need help with.
9. What do you see as the educational value of blogs in the classroom? How about outside of the classroom?
-I think blogs have a lot of educational value for the reason already mentioned. Feedback, ownership of blog, post assignments completed, and ability to voice one’s opinion or thoughts are some of the good educational value. I think the values of blogs are used more readily outside the classroom. Many students have personal profiles on myspace and facebook, and are already using blogs on a weekly basis. But if the schools incorporate the outside value of blogs, such as personal events and weekly adventures (like post 3 in our projects) then the student would accept them more generally.
10. In your view based on this experience, how can blogs be integrated appropriately and effectively in K-12 classrooms?
-Like I mentioned above, if I had this project through grade school I would have liked it for the same reason: feedback, my work is on the web, and ownership of a web/blog site. If a teacher sets up one site and post the students assignments on their, then the students can place comments on other students work and get a glimpse into the world of blogging. After that the teacher can assign each student or groups of students to construct and maintain their own blog, like we did in our classroom. I do not think it will be that difficult to do, many students in grade school already use blogging in some way or another.
11. As a teacher or future teacher, what issues or concerns do you have about using blogs in the classroom?
-The only issue would be the time it takes to maintain and update the blog. It was very time consuming for us added to the other assignment we had due, not to mention all of our other class work we had to do. It got a little overwhelming for us and that can cause a problem for grade school students. Most high schools have seven periods, with seven times the homework, so for one class to be demanding so much, it will eventually be disastrous. Also another concern would be if a student did not have a read access to a computer or Internet. There are a lot of lower income families who could not afford a computer, so we cannot penalize a student for not having enough money.
12. How should school administrators, teachers and/or parents manage and/or respond to the issues or concerns that you identified in the previous question?
-Well a parent could buy a computer, but if they have no money to spare, then they would not be able too. I think other teachers could lighten up their homework load, but that would not be fair to their classes. Also other teachers can join together to allow their students to post all their classes assignment (or the classes who are participating) on the blog. To go along with responding to the time issue, if a teacher schedules the construction and marinating of the blog to a slow schedule then the students would only have to do a little each week.
13. What surprise you about this blogging and mentoring experience?
-I was surprised by how much the mentors cared and read in detail our classroom activity progress and gave helpful feedback each time. I also was surprised on how the read our completed assignments and the other post, and gave conversational feedback there as well. I was on the mindset that they would just judge our work like a teacher, but instead they gave us helpful hints as a friend. Another aspect that surprised me was how much time it took each week to do the posting. It is something that I always forgot to do, I would be waiting for class during my hour break and remember that post one is due. They were not hard assignments, just a tad bit time consuming.
14. What did you learn from this blogging and mentoring experience about yourself and about blogs as tools for teaching and learning?
-I have learned a lot about blogging and myself in general. I think that blogs can be a great teaching and learning tool and can help kids get involved with the technology they use weekly. I have done blogs in the past, but I have never done anything like this and as long as this using the web. I think it is awesome to have my own site where people can come see my own work. If I had the opportunity too, I might continue with this and make a blog of my own, showing people my interest and the study I am doing. Hopefully the feedback would be as good as the stuff I have gotten from this class.