The idea of what a blog is grows in my mind as I experience them more and read more about them. I think a blog is not only a place for people to freely post their opinions and ideas, but it is a tool to collaborate on similar goals or projects.
As a middle school math teacher I have discovered some advanced math students that are enthusiastic for higher level math activities, a way for them to use the skills and knowledge they have and apply it to real world situations. Not all of those students are currently in my class, so I struggled to come up with a method to keep them involved and thinking, while communicating with me and their classmates. So I set up a blog Math for Life, http://mathforlife.blogspot.com/ . On this blog the students are asked to view various videos that relate to the topic. They will be posting their comments and working collaboratively to answer the essential question. The other exciting piece in blogging is the possibilities of inviting other professional into the conversation. It's much easier to do than to have a guest speaker into the classroom.
Last year I set up a literature blog with my reading students and we held book group meetings on the blog, the greatest effect of that was the fact that the quietest students in class had a lot to say, it was great to hear their voice!
For me, this is just the beginning of blogging!
Are you ready to grow? What's holding you back?
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3 comments:
Very cool projects. I look forward to hearing more about your blogging experiences in you classroom as the class progresses.
As I moved on with this math blogging project I encountered a few obstacles. All social networking is blocked at my school. It began from the fear of MySpace. I was successful in proving my math blog as worthwhile so was given some privileges, but it is restricted. It is so important for our schools to stay updated!
Your mathforlife blog looks great. I immediately thought of more questions: What does it mean that our currency is no longer backed by gold? (Begging the question what it means to be backed by gold.) What would it be like to work with $2, $5 and $10 coins like they do in Europe?
Anyway, the page is catchy and attractive and at some point I hope to create such a nice presentation for students.
Karen (late registee to Jeff's class)
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