Blog on Blogs

Give some specific ways that you can incorporate blogs into your classroom.

One of the great things about blogs is that they are public and anyone can access them. I think a great way to use blogs with math is to post problems on the blog and have students answer them. One advantage to blogs is that people who are shy may prefer to use blogs because they are more impersonal than being in class. A lot of students do not like to participate in class but in a blog they may be more inclined to respond to questions. Something specific that I think I can do is post very difficult problems on a blog, then give the students around a week to complete the problem for an extra credit possibility. A problem would arise here though because if one student would post the answer, then everyone has the answer because it is public. So I was thinking of putting the students into groups and give each group a different problem. Then the students could collaborate outside of school on the problems and I can also check their progress. The type of problem that I envision would be a very difficult application problem; one that would take a lot of teamwork to discuss and figure out how to do. One other thing that I could have the students do is post a sample question, like a test question, based on what we learned that day. So if we learned solving equations, the students could write a word problem where you have to solve for a variable. Then they could discuss eachother's questions.

What are the benefits and challenges to using this technology in your classroom? List some.

Benefits of using blogs in the classroom are that shier students may participate more on a blog, students can work whenever they want to and can ask questions at virtually any time. The problem is that responses aren't instant. For example, if there is a question for me, and I do not check until 2 hours after a question is posed, the kid may not check again that night. Another positive is that using blogs would probably be more to their liking because it involves techology. More and more students are starting to prefer the computer to pencil and paper so the students may love this. Another negative with using blogs is that there is not much to discuss with math, and I feel that discussion is the real strength of blogs. I feel like in a secondary math classroom, using blogs would be inefficient most of the time because there are better tools for math and we would not use the blog the best way that it can be used.

Why is it important to evaluate websites before using them in the classroom or in research?

With more and more people having access to technology and how easy it is becoming to use, more people are posting things online. The problem with this is that anyone, literally anyone, can post about any topic. I could post an article online analyzing Shakespeare when I know absolutely nothing about Shakespeare. What I write may be completely inaccurate, but someone reading it may not know that. The last thing that you want to do when making a presentation or teaching is to present something that is incorrect because it reflects poorly upon the presenter.

Do you think most people understand and apply these evaluation techniques?

I do not think that a lot of people evaluate websites. People are always looking for the quickest answer. I think that a lot of people search until they find an answer that sounds pretty good, then use it with no regards to what the source is.

How would you incorporate them into your classroom and student projects? What ways could you teach students evaluation techniques?

I think the best way to incorporate evaluation techniques is to demonstrate to the students how to properly search for and evaluate a source. I think this would also be the best way to teach them. I think if I would assign a project where students have to do some research and find sources as I guide them through the process they would learn a lot. Have them not only find resources, but also say how they know that it is credible or how they evaluated it. I would show them some strategies on how to evaluate a source, then assign the project. Then along the way I would set checkpoints where I would check progress and see how the students are doing. If I see a common mistake, I would take time to address the whole class.