Saturday, April 12, 2008

Choosing a Tool

The teachers at my school are new to Web 2.0, just as I was before taking this course. While many of the tools we have explored over the past three months will improve my teaching, a blog is perhaps the most user-friendly and is appropriate for student use at all grade levels. Embedded in each of our school goals for next year is a plan to include the use of technology to facilitate learning. Blogging is an easy and effective way to integrate technology to enhance teaching and learning across the curriculum.

Learning Specialists, Drs. Fernette and Brock Eides believe that blogging has a great deal of potential to positively impact students. They found that blogs can

· Promote critical and analytical thinking
· Be a powerful promoter of creative, intuitive, and associational thinking
· Promote analogical thinking
· Be a powerful medium for increasing access and exposure to quality information
· Combine the best of solitary reflection and social interaction

In addition, blogging is a great way to document professional development. Teachers learning how to blog and how to use blogging in the classroom can use a blog to reflect on their experience and communicate and collaborate with others. Blogs can also provide evidence of professional development for Personal Growth Plans.

1 comment:

ms. ippen said...

Hi Elizabeth,
what an amazing article. I intuitively knew that something special was happening with blogging, but how fascinating to have it spelled out by those who study the workings of the brain.
Stephanie