Sep 27 2006
Weblogs, Critical Studies and Cynical Thoughts…
Well I this is my second year of using weblogs within teaching and I can safely say this year is appearing to be much more successful. I am using weblogs in three ways really:-
- Information Portal – I have a weblog for Year 10 and Year 11 ICt students – www.constructict.com/studentblog . This has been a reasonable success as it becomes part of students lives to check and use the information, links and resources placed upon the blog. The students can also link up to recieve each post as an email. BUT it has been a struggle with Egyptian students to get them to use electronic resources, which I was initally surprised at. The crucial point to the site is that it must have resources and information that makes those students who use it, better able to think and succeed in the course.
- Student Work Folio – I have just set this up this year – www.constructict.com/year7. The blog is almost a kind of competition, where students from two KS3 classes one a year 7 and one a year 9 place work whether it is a podcast, file, text or graphic each week. Over the months there are pages setup for Best Student and for allowing the addition of other student work. Problems so far are time….as I only see KS3 classes for a double lesson a week. A solution is maybe to link with there other class teachers – to add work from a variety of classes that uses ICT within other subjects. It will also be interesting the parents responses as this week bloggin letters and policies will be given out.
- Student blogs to show progress – On the AS Applied ICT course, where they have to produce an eportfolio, students are asked to upload their research and plannign each week. And this will be included as a link within their eportfolio to show evidence of planning and testing. They are then linked in a blogroll of my GCSE blog. So far this year it is working much better – with students seemign to have a much better idea of using the web and its tools (they are also using del.icio.us and bloglines to less success.)
Interestingly last week I presented my first INSET in this school on the use of weblogs within schools to enhance teaching and learning. The actual INSEt which was completely practical went well, although I found it interesting and slightly bewildered the level of computing practical knowledge within the group. The initial success and interest though has not led to anybody takign up the use of blogs so far – is this due to time pressures, lack of interest or lack of facilities within an egyptian establishment? I don’t know.
Beyond the INSET, it has made me think of how difficult it will be to do research within my schools environment with such a natural resistance to ICT as a teaching tool, or with students so academically focused that anything that does not receive a grade towards their GCSE is not of interest?
Am I being cynical? I don’t know……
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