Using Web 2.0 within your classroom!

I feel that one of the most beneficial sources of Web 2.0 that I could use within my classroom is blogging. It is a great way to get your students onto the computer and allow for them to practice their computer skills while learning about a specific subject and topic at the same time. Also, as a teacher if you suscribe to RSS and suscribe to your students blogging page you will then be notified when their page is updated so you can monitor their progress within the classroom. I feel that through using blogging just in our ECMP class, after the first few times I posted a blog I began to feel very comfortable using it, and can definately see me using this within my clasroom as a future teacher. By using blogging within your classroom it would benefit your students by learning more about modern forms of technology. It is a different form of learning due to the fact that it is more hands on; by providing a variety of learning approaches within the classroom every student has the chance to succeed to their highest potential!

I feel that blogging can be incorporated into any subject matter really, and it not only has to be used within the classroom but you can encourage your students to blog at home too! One idea for using blogging within my classroom would be instead of getting your students to use their personal journals or learning logs everytime at their desks, allow for your students to have the chance to acccess their blogging page and post whatever they were going to say in the journal up onto the web! I also feel that you could use blogging as a center within your classroom. Instead of always making a center for journal writing, allow for your students to have a center of using blogging as their journal entry.

In grade three science in the topic of the solar system you could get your students to do a blogging post about their favorite planet within the solar system. They would post fun facts about the planet, why they chose it, what they found interesting about it, etc. By allowing them to work on the computers it is a responsibility to the students and hopefully they embrace that and rise to the challenge. Also, they could put links into their blog to pictures of their planet on sites such as Flickr and also to various fact sites and interactive solar system sites that they were given to by the teacher to search through for information!