Where do we go from here?

Blogging can be a rewarding experience.  Teachers can use blogs as a tool to help students improve on their writing skills. Teachers may find students are more apt to write if it is in a different arena, and not the traditional 'submit this x number of pages paper.'  Additionally, teachers may find it helps with vocabulary terms, book reflections, etc. 

However, as blogging is an awarding experience, I still struggle with implementation.  Personally, it has been difficult to maintain, and update my site on a weekly basis.  How does one ensure that a classroom blog is updated regularly?  With massive budget cuts, teachers seem to have more responsibility, with less pay, and less time.  The focus is on test scores.  We have a set end result, but no true method of getting there.  All we know is we must make that magic number in Math and English so that are schools make AYP.  The best way to make AYP at times seems to be 'teach the test'  But are we truly teaching our students how to think and live, or are we teaching them how to survive and make do of the circumstances? How do we convince parents, teachers, administration, the school board, and at times, ourselves, that we need to go beyond simply surviving, and teach our students how to live and thrive? Will blogging help us do that?

Blogging is not the magic wand that we can wave and all the problems will be fixed.  However, it is a start to getting students to think, analyze, critique themselves, and others.  Blogging serves as a tool for the quiet student to share what they are thinking without the fear of being teased by others.  Blogging shares as a tool that can be used for students as  young as pre-kindergarten, and has no age limit.  The site Edublogger is a great resource for teachers to see how blogs are being used.  The great thing about this site is that it is updated automatically as new blogs are added.  Blogs are shown to integrate pictures as well as video into their sites. 

I truly want to use blogs in my classroom, and i am working on the how and why so I can convince my administration on the importance of blogging. I want to show that, while an unconventional approach, blogging is a means of increasing test scores.  This is a project I am thinking of working on.  Even as I begin to conduct research for papers, and work on my technology project, and look towards the end of the program project, Blogging is a topic that is worth exploring.  This is not the last of blogging for me, instead it is only just the beginning.  Until next time....

ATS

This weeks review of ATS has been interesting for me. I have never utilized ATS but know of this service.  Initially I thought that ATS was simply special education, but upon careful examination I am learning it is so much more. I am aware of one student at my school who utilizes this service.  In fact, I just had a conversation with a teacher regarding this student. The teacher was saying how she had to enlarge all of the printed items for her student. She also referred to a training I had done that week on utilizing online testing. She wondered how she could put her student on the computer for online testing. One thing I was able to show her was how to enlarge the display screen to 400% which would work for this student.  The student also has a special machine she uses in the classroom, that can also be used on computers. There is so much out there, and as educators and specialist, we need to be abreast on the ins and outs of it all. We do not want to be in direct violation of a students IEP simply because we do not know about it, or how to implement it.

The Beginning

As we get started on our blogging assignments, it will be interesting to see how this course unfolds. I have always been interested in blogs, wondered how they worked, and if they worked. I look(ed) at them as on online diary/journal.  I have even heard the benefits of them, form helping with schoolwork, teaching, and other things. I even recall an article where a woman  used blogging as a support for her weight loss. She later had some many followers that it helped her lose weight because of the 'support' system. I am interested in how much I can learn and then incorporate blogging into my classrooms.  Only time will tell!