What is the best use of a classroom website or teaching blog and how can it improve learning for students.
The first most important factor to address when considering blogs is that they are both free and easily accessible. A classroom blog would involve day to day activities within the classroom as well as teacher planning and lesson templates. A teacher blog can be a bit more personal, including interaction between students or other teachers. The best thing about a blog is the ability for outsiders to be involved. Others are able to comment on specific areas of the blog with their own personal questions and thoughts.
Websites on the other hand are a bit more professional. These are loaded with information and comment sections are generally disabled. The benefit to websites is that they are informational and a great resource to students. However, when it comes to the classroom, I would suggest the use of blogs to encourage student interaction and to increase overall classroom participation. The use of websites and blogs is a great way to integrate technology into the classroom.
I would ask students to create their own blogs to keep them active with today's technology and to have students interact with each other by commenting on ones blog. I would also have students on various websites where they can find information on the current lesson.
Tech Tool 8.2: Communicating with Skype
Skype is a tool used to communicate through a camera on different electronic devices. I would use it in the classroom if a student is out sick for a week and needs the homework/ classwork that they have missed. You can have skype always turned on so the student can participate during the whole class period.
The chapter talks about different ways to open up the window of communication between students and teachers using blogs, websites, skype, email, and text messaging. Due to advancement in technology these are all new ways that are becoming more common in the classroom in the 21st century. Now a days even social media is being used between educators and their students.
