BP5_2009102_Blog2.0

Blogging is probably the most well-known web 2.0 tool. The concept of posting your thoughts online is not a new one, and it is one that most of my students are already very capable of doing. So adding one to a classroom that is useful should be fairly easy. One of the ideas I have would help with addressing current events and still have time to get through all of my content. I would like to set up a weekly current event blog where I would find 2 articles of what is new in science. I would then assign that each student responds to the article they found to be the most interesting. Once they responded, they would need to go research more on that topic and post an article that either expands or contradicts their chosen post. The benefit to doing this would be that each student can see how advances in science happen everyday and that there are real life uses for what we are studying. This would also be a place where students can work on their writing skills. My school wide goals also include literacy so here would be a way for more Language Arts in the Science classroom. The other idea would feature a debate of the week or month on a hot button issue in science. This could be related to what we are studying currently in class (a topic that was started in class could be finished here) or if a discussion arose from the current events that warranted more time. This would also keep the students “hooked” into class long after the class is over. Students would also have more time to respond to the discussions and those who do not like to speak in class will still be heard. The biggest benefit to using blogs would be the fact that teachers still have control over what gets posted and can make sure that everything is appropriate.