Benefits of Blogging – a conversation from the technoLanguages Network
technolanguages.ning.com
What are the benefits of blogging?
how many of you have your own blog ? How many of you blog with your students? It would be great to hear what your responses are as to why and what you see then benefits to be.
For me the benefits of blogging are:
1. it gives me a space to reflect on my practice
2. it’s a place where I can share ideas and involve other people in conversation
3. it’s a way for me to make connections with other people who are interested in the same things
4. it’s fun – I just really enjoy writing my blog
5. it provides a resource to help out other teachers
The benefits I see blogging having for students:
1. It gives them an authentic audience and purpose for their work
2. They make connections with other students from all over the world – and you should see the excitement on their faces when they see thy have a comment from overseas!
3. It encourages students to take more pride in their work as they know they now have an international audience
4. It encourages students to write about and share things about themselves that they may otherwise not have a reason or inclination to share. I have learnt so much about the students in my school through their blogs.
What do you think?
Tags: benefits, blogging, blogs, connections, international, students
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Viviana Golding on -
Dear Jess this is excellent! Thank you! Don’t worry about that PD on blogging I am sure that we can do something in the future also with Isabelle….
Have agreat day ciao Viv
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Permalink Reply by Michael Atkinson on -
I have just started blogging and I think that it is a great intro to Web 2.0 tools. It is relatively easy to set one up, sso technophobes need not fear! And I agree with Jess!
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Permalink Reply by Tina Wilkinson on -
Hi Jess – I think you hogged all the answers!!!! lol
I am trying them out with my Year 11s, but we are having terrible trouble with edublogs inside the school on the student server.
What other free blog sites do people use successfully in schools?Tina
What are your thoughts?
My Worst Job Ever
I’ve been tagged with this meme by Marg Murnane of technoLiteracy fame. This is the question to answer for this meme:
Looking back on your life, what was the “worst job” you ever had that ironically helped prepare you to one day become an educator?
One of my worst ever jobs was being on the ticket barrier at the Royal Melbourne Show. Not a very hard job, but I had to deal with a lot of numnuts who couldn’t get their tickets to work properly and were so impatient they just simple wouldn’t listen to instruction. I ended up being the one who would yell instructions (surprise surprise) to the hoards of eager show-goers and potential ticket numnuts.
I also one year had the pleasure of working at the Australian Open as an usher. I was responsible for keeping people quiet (tennis etiquette and all that) and managing the lines of people outside the doors.
How did these prepare me for my role as an educator? Well, come on, which teacher out there doesn’t need some level of crowd control skills?!
Who do I now tag to keep this meme alive?
Moblogging with Utterz…
Mobile post sent by jessmcculloch using Utterz. Replies. mp3
Wiki Watcher, Blog Buddies, Podcast Pair
This term I have started several wikis in my classes, which I will blog more about later. I have the Year 7s each morning for a 15 minute session called ‘Skills For Living.’ The aim of SFL is to discuss things like getting along and being organised. This term we are also focusing on reflecting on our learning.
I wanted to make these sessions a little more engaging for the kids, and so this term I set up the techno7 wiki and podcast and have given different kids a different role each week. We have the
Wiki Watcher – who is to make sure that whatever contributions that are to be made to the wiki are actually completed, that the wiki stays organised, and that the colour if it changes if desired.
Blog Buddies – who are to get together and write a paragraph each of a blog post about something that happened that week and how they felt about it – images to be included.
and we have the…
Podcast Pair – who have to have a podcast episode planned by Tuesday, recorded on Wednesday, edited on Thursday and ready for our listening pleasure while we write in our reflective journals on Friday.
All of these roles have worked out really well for these first three weeks of term. For me, it’s a way of getting the kids to have experience with several different tools while being able to cover other things that we need to discuss such as how to get along better and how we can be better learners for next week!
The Seven Wonders of the Whiteboard Challenge…
begins on Monday August 11th. There are seven challenges to complete, then blog about. Join up to the Interactive Whiteboards in the Classroom Diigo group, and favourite your blog posts there. 
The aim of the challenge to to create a group of teachers who have reflected on and created resources for using their interactive whiteboards – complete with reflections and tips for other teachers. If you are blogging about each challenge that you take part in (and you don’t have to do all seven unless you want to!) then you have helped to provide a resource that other teachers will find very valuable.
Each challenge will be presented to you in video or podcast form by an experienced whiteboard user. The presenter will show you what they have done, why they like doing it and how to do it yourself. You then have to go back to your classroom and take up the challenge of using it in your own way and then telling us all about it!
The Whiteboard Challenge Task Masters so far include myself, Chris Betcher, Lauren O’Grady, Ben Hazzard and Danny Nicholson. At the moment the challenges have not be written up, but they will all be ready to go by the time the challenge starts so that you can pick and choose which ones you want to participate in.
Find out more about the challenge and sign up on the wiki.
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