I was thrown an unexpected curve ball last week when I was told that our school system was no longer using blogs and that my classroom website had to be attached and linked with our school website. Prior to finding this out, my fifth grade students had been collaborating online with one another through the use of blogs. I have decided to convert the blog format into county approved wikis. I have started to research the easiest and most convenient way of performing this task due to the fact that this will effect 200 hundred of my students. I sent out a county-wide email to all elementary physical education teachers to find out how many of them were effected by this change. It turns out that 31 elementary school teachers were using blogs and were now faced with my same dilemma. We have set up a meeting with our area technology director who will be teaching us the best methods of moving blog posts into various wikis.
I have also continued to experiment with my classroom website and have started to construct a brief outline of the ideas and concepts that I wish to include on my page. The music teacher and I are meeting with our technology teacher to see first hand how he sets up and makes changes to our school website. This will hopefully allow me to see a "behind the scenes" look at how online projects can be set up and maintained in a simple format.
I plan on sticking with my GAME plan, despite these recent set backs. This may take more time then I had expected but I am willing to put forth the effort if it will benefit my students. I look forward to my upcoming meetings and will hopefully gain some understanding as well as a sense of confidence in terms of carrying out my GAME plan.
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Rachael,
ReplyDeleteIt is unfortunate that your district is changing procedures about blogs and classroom websites. With the connections you've made with other teachers in the building, I'm sure you'll be able to accomplish a blog atmosphere on an approved wiki. Did your district give reasoning for why they are changing their procedures? I wonder if you district was concerned about the monitoring of blog posts? I think that it would be hard to monitor posts unless you visit the site often. Did you have a system that worked well? I encourage you to continue collaborating with other educators in your building about integrating technology into the classroom. That is one goal that I still need to work on. In order for me to continue my professional growth, I need to collaborate with more teachers in my own building. Thank you for encouraging me to do this.
Jennifer
Rachael-
ReplyDeleteI am glad to hear that you've been making lemonade out of the lemons you have been dealt. I guess when there is no other alternatives, you have to be quick on your feet and transfer to the vehicle that lets your class arrive at the ultimate goal. For that I commend you!
When you learn how to transfer from blog to wiki, would you please be kind enough to share it with you Walden colleagues so that we can all the wiser?! Thanks!
Jennifer-
ReplyDeleteThe main reason our district gave for eliminating blogs was that they were too difficult to monitor. Since I used them with such a small percentage of my students, I was able to monitor posts and ensure that students were using them properly. This has upset a lot of teachers and we are still working on creating a smooth transition from blogs to wikis. I don't think this will be a difficult process, but it will definitely be time consuming. I'm thankful that my technology teacher is willing to help me with this project.
Heather-
I will do my best to keep the Walden community informed of this process. I plan on starting this process over the Christmas break with the help of my technology teacher. I agree, we need to be able to think on our feet and this is a great opportunity for me to do so!
Rachael,
ReplyDeleteFirst of all it is great to hear that 31 fellow elementary teachers were using blogs in the classroom in your district. That’s a good size group of teachers using and teaching technology in the classroom. It’s a shame that your districts deal with wiki is abruptly forcing teachers to not use blogs and only use wikis. It seems that you and your fellow teachers are on the right path of using technology in the classroom.