Blogs in Education

Today I searched for "educational blogs" on three different search engines to see the results. I found that the first result that popped up was the same on every engine I tried. I am assuming that this was the case because it was the closest to the text that I typed in. The rest of the results varied a lot. I do not know why this was, but I was thinking that maybe that different engines search for different results. For instance, maybe one engine searches for closest text that matches and another searches for most recently updated.

I also explored a few educational blogs and found that they are used in many different ways. First off, they are being used how I think I will most likely use a blog in my classroom. They are a great way to communicate information to students and parents about classroom status and what we are learning. Second, they are being used as a tool for teachers to reflect on lessons and to get feedback from parents to better their teaching style. Lastly, I noticed that it was a great tool for teachers to communicate to each other about lesson plans or topics. This can help elaborate on activities and communicate on ideas for other activities.

I also researched the difference between RSS readers and aggregators. I would say in my classroom I would use an aggregator because it sounds like that is more used for communication from me to my classroom. RSS readers sound like they are used to keep up with your favorite websites more, and I wouldn’t need that in my classroom. Although there are many great education website and can be useful for my students, I feel like I could use my aggregator to summarize those websites if needed.

I think that blogging and using RSS readers can be useful in my classroom in many ways. Most importantly, I feel that it helps provide another resource for my students to use. I can show them other websites and videos that I might not be able to in class. I can also further explain projects and post examples so they get clearer ideas of expectations, since we all know it is hard to sit in class for so many hours in a day. Also, parents can use this as a tool to stay interactive in their students learning. Sometimes it is easy to get out of touch with your child, and this is something that parents can do at home to stay involved.

I think as much as there are pros to using blogs and RSS readers like posting examples, staying in contact with parents, and getting a clearer view of expectations, there are also cons. Blogs and RSS readers can reduce the face-to-face interaction between parent and teachers or students and teachers. It can also be an unfair advantage to some students if they are wealthier and have better computers/internet connections. Some students might not be able to afford the internet or computers at home, or might just have 1 for the whole family and not get very much time on it daily. This can provide an unfair advantage for some students over other. In order to reduce this, I think it is important that you use these tools as enhancers and not necessities. Also, it would be good to get students some computer lab time in school so they can access the internet as well.

WebQuest

For one of our assignments we were supposed to go onto webquest and explore to see what resources we could use for when we get our own classrooms. Once we got into class, we discussed in a group our findings. My group found that we like this website because the activities can be used either for individuals, or in group settings. Also, we can use many of these games and resources in our own classroom, so it's a good way to get collaboration from other teachers that you will probably never even get to meet! Lastly, this is a way for us to get new ideas and really use the world as our resource. There is no limit to who can post these activities so we get ideas from everyone that can access the Internet.

Personally, I found that you can modify already made webquests. I like the idea of this because it makes it so that you can alter it a little to fit more into your classroom. If we are studying the alphabet, I can use the activities but gear them more towards to learning level of my classroom at that point in time. I do not think I would do anything differently if I were to access this webpage again. I would probably go there with some subjects in mind so that I would know exactly what to search for instead of just exploring around. I feel that this activity was extremely helpful for showing us another great resource that we have at our fingertips!

Gardner's Multiple Intelligences

As someone who learns very differently than most people, I think that studying Gardner's multiple intelligences is very important to be a good teacher. I had a lot of trouble growing up learning in the classroom, because I like to learn by reading and then asking questions. In elementary school and throughout high school this was not the method that teachers used. In my classroom, I plan on incorporating many of these intelligences so that each student has a fair chance to succeed.
One way that I plan on doing this is by using technology in my classroom. Computers are an amazing way to have students play games to learn, and have fun doing it. This is the bodily-kinesthetic approach to learning. I am also going to use technology by playing music. I think that remembering songs and listening to things is another good way to learn. These are just a few of the methods I have thought of and will use in my classroom to tie together Gardner's multiple intelligences and technology.