Student blogging in the classroom and as homework

The interesting thing for me, is the different way this has made me think about how I teach and also why I teach things.

Last year we concentrated on thinking skills and integrating them into our classes. This has been so much fun. Lessons are now really quite invigorating and I look foward to teaching them. The students get to have a voice in the class room as they are thinking about their learning and thinking creatively and laterally about the information. This has been so beneficial.

My Year 10s, who I also taught last year are really starting to show the benefit of these thinking skills. The level of thinking that they are putting into their work is really showing up. Recently (after a gruelling assignment task) I made their weekly homework to simply blog their essay that they had written before. Previously, while I know that the students were helping each other out with the essay, it was all very secretive....they didn't really want to share what they were doing with each other. However, since blogging their essays, they are now going in and reading each other's essays and commenting on each others work - albeit the "hey that was great" kind of comment.

This is so powerful. My kids have been lead into reading without even a hint of an argument. WOW!!!!!!!!! This in contrast to when they were told by their English teacher that they had 2 hours of reading to do over the weekend, and there was a big huge groan around the room. I commented to them, that if they counted up the time they spent reading each others blogs, they would have read for almost an hour!

It has taken longer than some to really get into the whole blogging thing.... and I think in some cases, it was a case of my expectations that a part of their homework would be on the computer each week. (I have to admit failure when it came to my year 9s with this, but I will perserveare; my seniors are very spasmodic also...but I have to remember... BABY STEPS!!)

For many of my students this was a completely new experience and completely out of their comfort zone, however as my expectations have increased, more students have come on board slowly but surely.

Pop over and read some of thir blogs - they would love some comments from people all over the world and NZ.