Blogs and Wikis (534 - class#1)

Our one, short month of vacation is over, and we are back at it. The end is almost in site now though!

We are back to another more "hands-on" class, it seems. I am all for it! I have really enjoyed all the classes where we learned about new tools that we could immediately incorporate into our classrooms.

One of the movies we watched, "When I Become a Teacher", was very effective. Unfortunately, I have met several teachers like that. I am happy to say that I don't think I teach with anyone like that now. I think, though, if you aren't careful about changing things up and continuing to learn new methods, it would be an easy trap to fall into. It is "easier" to be that kind of teacher. I hope that if I ever became like that, I would realize it and get out of the profession!

I plan to try a form of blogging with my seventh graders this year. We are going to create a "Book Review Blog". They will review books, read each others' reviews, and comment on them. I have also enlisted the help of a couple other teachers and our principal to read some of the posts and comment to them. I am also hoping some of the parents will get into the spirit and make some comments to the posts.

After reading the chapters for this week, I am starting to think about other forms of blogging I could use in my classroom. I do have a wiki currently connected to my classroom website. I only used it with the class a couple times last year, but I think I would like to expand that this year. More to come on that...