Comment on Web Conferencing - Can We Chat?

This week has been a very good one in terms of Internet resource discovery.  As I noted earlier in the week, Karen Blumberg's K12 conference presentation was so invigorating and provided me with a plethora of links that I will surely use as I continue on in school and in my future career.  (and did I mention that she commented on my post?!  how awesome is that?!)  Kim Caise's Web Conferencing - Can We Chat? was also incredibly informative and provide many helpful links.

An interesting comment that Caise made was that she hoped that with the tools that she provided that our students will feel inspired.  I have to tell you, I was just as (if not more!) inspired by the resources that she gave.  For instance, I found the site The Global Education Collaborative to be extremely helpful.  I appreciate the global-connectedness that the site promotes and truly proves how small our world really is.  Another site, Virtual Field Trips is an incredible resource because it provides students more educational opportunities because they are able to visit places across the global that the class would not necessarily have the funds to travel to.  How incredible it is for a student to "visit" the Louvre in the morning and then Madagascar in the afternoon!

I also found Caise's personal blog to be incredibly rich in resources and I have book marked it for our Diigo group (and can be found here http://kcaise.wordpress.com/).  I hope that you will all have time to explore Caise's "Ventures," and get to take a look at all of the wonderful resources she has listed for educators.

To Blog or Not to Blog...THAT is the Question (Week Four - 9/19/10 - 9/25/10)

Photo by cambodia4kidsorg on Flickr.

The subject of blogging and schools can be a tricky one.  Some schools are wide-open to the idea with no parameters or privacy settings and others are so against the idea of blogs, they are not allowed at all.  I am a firm believer of reaching a happy medium; I feel blogs play an integral part in the classroom and should be utilized.

For starters, class blogs are excellent resources to keep the lines of communication open between teachers, students, and parents.  Posting current events, homework, and upcoming field trips keeps everyone in the educational loop.  As a class project, I think it is extremely beneficial for students to have a blog.  Not only does it promote communication, it also encourages creativity.  Blogging may also result in a student finding something within themselves that they didn't know existed (i.e. a budding writer or a journalist).  Finally, as mentioned in my board post, I think that blogging promotes accountability.  Students are responsible for their blog postings.  If they do not do their work, they must accept responsibility and find ways to remedy the situation appropriately.  I feel responsibility is one of the biggest lessons (and most important) that students should learn.

Of course, with every good blog post comes the need for a discussion with students on privacy and safety.  As important as using the blog as classroom tool, privacy and safety discussions sure occur before the blog is created and should be revisited every class in some form.  If we teach students the proper way to handle the Internet from the get-go, they will use it the right way from that moment on.