Blogging 4 Education
During week five we invite you to join us at Blogging 4 Education where we’ve provided an overview of the 4Cs and a blog pool for you to review and reflect on blogging in education.
When you arrive on the “Blog Pool” page you’ll find the following:
In hopes of inspiring development of blogs for education that encourage student collaboration and communication, and require critical thinking skills and creativity, we’ve found some sample blogs for you to reflect on. Please choose one to review, and reflect on how it supports the development of the 4Cs in learning. Post your thoughts as a comment, and then check out the comments that others have made.
To post your comments please:
- go to the “Blog Pool” page
- select “View Description and Discuss (name of blog),”
- once on the appropriate discussion page, use the rating feature to rate the blog on the use of 4Cs,
- next add your comments,
- respond to the posts others have made.
We have kept our list of blogs to a minimum in the interest of creating an opportunity to develop in-depth discussion.
If you have blogs you would like to share, please send them to May (at mayandkate{at}gmail{dot}com with “ETEC522 Blog Pool” in the subject field) and we will add them to our pool.
Let’s have a valuable discussion about how blogs can be used to enhance learning!
Posted in: Week 05:
mariefrancehetu 6:33 pm on June 4, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Great intro for Blogging 4 Education . . . here your focus is on the 4C’s for primary, elementary and high-school students, but even as an adult teacher I find I can relate to the 4C’s. It will be interesting however to explore and discuss how the 4C’s can be fostered through blogging.
Marie-France
Leonora Zefi 7:45 pm on June 4, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Blog title: Language, arts and social studies with Mr. Hayes
In addition to its clarity and richness of information and resources, I found that this blog effectively used the 4 C-s of education.
Collaboration
Every blog entry invites learners to answer questions and formulate, critique and share argument points with the group.
Creativity:
I thought that the idea of a TED talk style debate was very creative. The content was presented in a variety of media (video clips, resources) to engage students (in addition to text based content) and provide models for presenting their thoughts and arguments. I really liked the unique approach to encouraging timely participation.
Critical Thinking
Critical thinking is stimulated through effective questioning and offering comparative comments for learners to review and compare. Multiple perspectives are offered through text and video and I thought it was an excellent idea to include video clips of the author defending his point of view and work. In my opinion this stimulates discussion and allows for more collaborative opportunities to challenge biases and develop critical thinking and objectivity.
Communication
I found this blog to be one of the easiest to follow the flow – it’s very well structured and intuitive and despite the abundance of resources, I did not get lost or distracted. It was helpful to have “tips for blogging” displayed and easily accessible.
The PowerPoint slides outlining questions for debate could be improved but overall, I can definitely see the benefits of blogging for learning and bringing out the creative side of learners and encouraging communication.
Thank you group 1 for a job well done – this analysis was helped my understanding of the 4 C-s through a “hands-on” activity.
Leonora
Claire Burgoyne 12:14 am on June 5, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Leonora, thank you for providing a thorough analysis of the use of the 4Cs in the blog “Language Arts and Social Studies with Mr. Hayes.” We’d really appreciate it if you would paste your comments to the blog pool page at: http://bloggingforeducation.wordpress.com/2012/06/02/language-arts-and-social-studies-with-mr-hayes/ That way others analyzing the blog can benefit from your contribution and perhaps add to it. Also, while you’re at the blog pool page you could add your rating by using the “Rate This on 4C Use” option.
Thanks
Leonora Zefi 4:22 pm on June 6, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Claire,
I tried a couple of times to post it in the respective blog but for some reason it keeps loading but nothing appears. It may be an issue with my computer or browser. Will keep trying.
Thanks,
Leonora
Claire Burgoyne 1:03 am on June 7, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Leonora,
Sometimes technology is a puzzle. I hope you have some luck with posting to the blog pool as I found your analysis to be very thorough. Let’s hope that others read your contribution.
Claire
karonw 1:00 pm on June 5, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hello Presentation Team,
I just wanted to thank you all for the excellent presentation on your blogging topic. Your blog was very well-laid out, made it very easy for me to navigate throughout to find information and thanks for highlighting all the key points for us!
Good job!! I will be posting my reflections for your activity shortly.
Best,
Karon Wong
maybacon 7:38 pm on June 7, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thanks for the feedback, Karon. As with lots of e-learning environments, the navigation has been a work in progress!
If anyone else has navigation/content/technical issues, please let us know so we can help your experience be (relatively) painless – at least insofar as we can make the learning environment suitable for everyone.
May
vawells 3:16 pm on June 5, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Blog – “I Think”
This blog presents topics that students are encouraged to analyse and reflect on their opinions. The topics are relevant to students and would, I think, facilitate some interesting discussion.
Collaboration: The blog has a set of rules for students to follow which essentially leads to an atmosphere of respect in which all contributions are valued and considered. Students are asked to post their thoughts and to read their classmates thoughts. “Remember to read the ideas of others and try to build on them.” In theory this encourages students to analyse their peers’ ideas and add to or debate arguments made. This type of collaboration is an example of an authentic, real world activity. This blog seems to be a new entity to this group of students so as time goes on I would expect the quality of the entries to improve. The combined learning of the class far exceeds the learning of the individual.
Critical Thinking: Through the weekly topics students are required to analyze their opinions and opinions of others, to synthesize the information gained through the reading of their peers’ entries trying to connect the new information to their own ideas. This type of blog also requires students to reflect on their own ideas on a topic and alternate opinions voiced by their peers. One aspect I feel is missing is student reflection on their own learning and the process that facilitated the learning.
Communication: “I Think” promotes effective communication of student ideas and “listening” to others through the requirement for students to read other students’ entries. The blog uses images and text to present the topic. Although this blog is to promote student exposition writing I would add the option for students to present their arguments in different formats, video, audio or cartoons. I would. The variety would lead to better written pieces as students perfect their debating skills.
Creativity: I think this is probably the weakest of the 4c’s. Although the topics encourage students to think outside the box there is not much innovation. However to participate in the conversation students need to receptive to their classmates opinions and follow the posts closely. Hopefully this would encourage students to look for commonalities/connections between their ideas and their peers.
Overall “I Think” has the potential to engage students in activities that require students to use the 4cs.
Donna Forward 8:22 pm on June 5, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Dear May, Claire, Greg, Shawn and Chelsea.
It sure is great to finally see some faces and hear some real voices after looking at my computer screen every day for the past month. It’s amazing that you’re all in different places around the world but because of technology, you were all able to come together for the occasion. It was also fun to see a palm tree from Turks and Caicos in the background behind Shawn. As I look out at the rain here in the Cariboo, it makes me dream of getting away:)
I’m looking forward to checking out the rest of your “Blogging 4 Education” site.
Thanks,
Donna
karonw 8:24 pm on June 5, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
In the past, I have really enjoyed blogging as I will be able to go back and see how I have further developed my skills and knowledge in a field. I find that blogging is a great way to voice out our opinions and thoughts and really share this information with others. Similar to what your team have stated under the Collaboration section “Transform the learning process from a personal activity to a social and group activity”. To me, I feel that when I blog I have entered a community of practice through cyberspace where we can share our thoughts through commenting on each other’s blog posts. The blogging experience has impacted me mostly in a positive way, other than increasing my critical skills while reflecting on my own work and reviewing others, I feel rewarded when someone comments on my post and feel motivated when someone criticizes my work as I am open to suggestions and see this as an opportunity for further growth. Blogging for sure made things better on my end, as I can blog and write my thoughts out at anytime. Sometimes, I have so much going on in my mind I just want to release it all out and waiting until the next class session to get the opportunity to release my thoughts may not be as efficient because by that time I probably forgot what I was going to share with the class.
For education, I would see that blogging is something that would be used to record one’s personal self-development. I think blogging does have a good potential in the market, there are food blogs, personal blogs, educational blogs, health and wellness blogs and etc. To me, blogging seems unlimited you can blog anytime, anywhere about anything. It is a way to let us express our thoughts with one another. As mobile apps and a lot of courses are also adapting to the blogging feature, I would say that in 5 years it would be a trend that would be common amongst us all. I think my inter-school blogging idea is already out there but I would think that having students blog over their course of study would be a good idea.
Karon
Dave Horn 9:01 pm on June 7, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I use a blog as a photographer and believe there is a lot of potential for them in education to provide forums for students to discuss ideas with in their community and with the community at large. It is important for the educator overseeing the use of blogs in the learning process to promote and model dialogue so that students can build their communication and collaboration skills. Without some encouragement and modeling the forums often end up under used with only superficial content or little actual dialogue between various learners.
Dave