Mrs. Zana’s Class

Why? Because it doesn’t want to get pinched

3/16
It was suggested to me that I write about my experiences using this blog with my class, and I thought it was a good idea. So, this post will be an ongoing record of our reaction to using the blog in our class. This first post is going to be REALLY long, cause I need to recap my first almost 2 weeks with this experiment. I guess that means I’m the hands down winner or the “Longest Post” contest that Veronica and Dat seem to be having.

I began the blog after attending a workshop at the CAG (California Association for the Gifted) conference. I’d been looking for a way to have my students interact with each other on an online forum, and this seemed to be perfect. We’d used the Flashlight Readers Forum at Scholastic.com to write about a novel I assigned. The kids told me they liked the experience, but we all were frustrated because the site didn’t work correctly and for a lot of the time we couldn’t read anyone’s responses beyond the first few. We also contributed to an online forum posted on the L.A. Times site and actually got three responses to our comments about high school dropouts. That was exciting for me. I knew I was on the right track, but was missing the right tool to make it happen.

When I found out about the Edublog site, I knew I’d found what I was looking for.

I look upon this as an experiment. I don’t know where it will lead. Will I be able to have kids submit most of their assignments online? Will they actually start critiquing each other’s work? That’s one of my big goals. Will this encourage us to become a community of readers and writers?

I know that this is the wave of the future. We teachers are still lugging home spiral journals to grade, while our students all have MySpace blogs where they REALLY are journaling.

The first day I posted an assignment and everyone answered in groups. Great; now I don’t have to take home the notebooks to grade them. Some people said that they agreed with other comments, so we did get some interacting.

I posted the week’s standards as pages. Now, I don’t need to write it by hand. And, it’s available all week.

Period 3 posted some of the poems they’re working on. Then today, a week later, an interesting development. . . during free time 2 people who aren’t even in the period 3 elective asked permission to post their own poetry. Wow! An actual forum to share our work, not because we HAVE to, but because we WANT to, and our words and thoughts are worth sharing with others.

I wrote about my experiences as a reader in my “March Reading Log”. I wanted to model how to reflect on reading and to show that I’m a recreational reader - that reading is something I do for fun, not because I have to (I’m on the “D” level according to the system we use in class). When I begged for responses, I got a few, and I hope the discussion will expand. We’re not where I’d like to be yet.

I opened up a SAS chat spot a few days ago. 141 comments in a few days. I wanted a spot for the community to just talk, not necessarily about class assignments. I thought it might get people more interested in the blog. It started out as a lot of nonsense - lots of “WAZ up ppl?” I think that got a little boring after awhile. Then a few actual questions and conversations started. Dat wrote from home in the evening. (Yes, assigning himself homework). Then today our first problems. An online fight (most of it got deleted by me, your friendly moderator). I’ve decided not to add any comments to the chat - I want it to be a student spot. So, I guess I’m what you’d call a lurker. Then, scrolling. That got outlawed too, and I updated the instructions.

This afternoon with a little too much free time on our hands, and all of us burnt out from too many assessments, the chatting went full speed. Not too many people looked for information on terra cotta soldiers; chatting was more fun. Will this get out of hand??? Will I need to set rules and more guidelines?

It was interesting to see what the subjects of discussion were. Lots of concerns about the mile run. Some boy/girl stuff. Some serious concerns voiced in public (Did they really want the whole class to read it, or were they not thinking?) Sitting with one’s computer we tend to forget that we have an audience.

I was pleased to see people concerned about grades and pledging to do better. Good for them, and I’m glad they shared.

Many people keep saying they’re bored. Dat especially. This worries me. Is it just chatter, or is the class not meeting their needs? But, at the same time I’m thinking - this is not something they would say to my face (they would know it was rude). So, why is it O.K. on a forum that I’ve announced I’m reading?

Is it acceptable to give each other honest criticism on this site? Or, should that be done privately? Or, only in person, face to face, not through typed words? Is there a time when writing is NOT the way to communicate, and only talking will do? Is your generation changing human interaction by spending too much time IMing each other and not enough time face to face?

Let me know what you think on the subject.

See if you can find any cool sites with pictures of the terra cotta army of China’s first emperor. Post the links in your comments