The article Collaborative Literacy: Blogs and Internet Projects explains why using a blog as a delivery method in a classroom helps student be more creative and be able to share their thoughts more easily. My initial thoughts into my inquiry question already knew that blogs afforded for students to use multimedia to respond to questions be it in video, audio, image and a lot of other forms. What this article introduced to me about blogging was the idea of using an avatar (with primary students) to interact with the students. The article mentioned a teacher role playing as “Jefferson the teddy bear” to ask the class questions such as “How can we save my endangered species friends the eagles?” The teacher would provide the resource links and off the students went to research and respond and comment each other’s findings.

I thought that this article helps highlight the SAMR model’s modification and redefinition of blogging technology in a classroom. The fact that students can now hand in videos or audio recording of themselves with a written assignment is really close to redefinition using technology. The article gave examples of full redefinition of technology when students would record their poems and send it to another teacher who runs an internet podcast called “Youth Radio”. Students’ recording now is shared on the internet, giving students a voice and become content creators for a much larger audience (Anyone around the world really!).

Reference:

Boling, E., Erica Boling, Jill Castek, Lisa Zawilinski, & Karen Barton. (03/01/2008). The reading teacher: Collaborative literacy: Blogs and internet projects International Reading Association.