One strategy that would be effective with classroom blogs is scaffolding. Using blogs would give students opportunities to reflect and respond to each other to deepen their content understanding after learning the basics from a teacher.
A teacher could also use inductive learning through blogs. The teacher could provide some interesting examples of concepts and then give students opportunities to make more sense of them through blog posts and reflections on each others' posts.
I think it would be difficult to use simulation as a learning strategy through the use of blogs. Blogs allow students to communicate and learn with each other, but they do not require students to continue physical activities or research to further their understanding of a concept.
As a school librarian, I would love to see students using blogs to share ideas about books they have read. I think that giving students opportunities to give their honest opinions about what they read would encourage them to share their literacy experiences with their classmates. I think it would also encourage students who do not enjoy reading to read more because it would become more of a social activity.
I think that blogs could be used to support topics such as math facts by simply giving students an opportunity to share what their strengths and weaknesses are as well as sharing ideas about what types of learning and resources have been effective for them. For example, a student may mention that they hate multiplication, but another may post a link to a fun multiplication game.
LOVE the idea about using blogs to share books that students have read. I didn't think about the fact that it would get them to engage more by collaborating more with their peers. Good point! I am always looking for more ways to motivate my students, and I think that we're onto something here. Thank you so much for the ideas! Maybe you could have a blog on how the library is working, and ideas others have for books to be brought into the library. Don't know if that would work...
ReplyDeleteI hadn't thought of the instructional strategy of scaffolding being use with blogs but I totally agree with you. Students would be able to have support not only from their teacher but also their classmates.
ReplyDeleteI think using blogs to have students respond to what they are reading is an excellent idea. I have my students to reader's response journals. It would be great to have them do this in the form of a blog becuase then they would have access to their classmates' responses.