I feel that creating a weblog and having classrooms contribute to it is a great way of utilizing technology in the classroom. When I first thought about implementing this in my classroom the first question I asked was how often I should require my students to contribute. (daily or weekly basis) Initially I thought having them contribute on a daily basis would be great but then I realized that it wasn't practical. My classroom doesn't always have access to the computer lab and not all of my students have access to computers at home. The increased use of technology in the classroom is a good thing but I think we need to remember that Southeast Kentucky is an economically depressed area. This should be kept in mind when we determine how often we assign lessons that depend on computer access. If we can give the students time to do it at school great. Yet I don't think we should assign things like this as homework.
That's my first complaint always... I have satellite internet myself because there are no other options available where I live in Breathitt County, so I am always bringing this fact up when students completing assignments, etc. at home.
ReplyDeleteEven to complete the assignments for this course, I had to stay after school and complete activities on my school computer, which again provided many difficulties because of proxies.
I am in total agreement. I plan to use Web Blogs in my class. Many of my students do not have access at home and we do not have a full size computer lab at our school. I plan to have them create one post a week. I will have them plan it out and have it ready for when we get to use the iPads on Fridays. Then they will logon and make their post. I would love to be blessed in a district where availability of technology was not a problem, but that just isn’t the case now. So hopefully, my plan will work and my students will get to post in their blogs at least once a week.
ReplyDelete