Moving Right Along
Maybe it’s too soon for a declaration, but here goes: I have finally worked out how I will be (starting at least) to use blogs and wikis in my classroom for the Fall.
I teach 7th and 8th grade science, which in my district is the New York State Regents curriculum culminating in the state-mandated assessment at the end of 8th grade. Last year, with both my 7th and 8th grade classes, I had an ongoing assignment that the students were to read a science article froma variety of print and web sources and then to submit a response. The response consisted of a summary and then a reflection. My goal was to have them develop literacy within the content area.
I was happy with how this went, as were my administrators and fellow teachers. This seems like a perfect blogging situation. I can post an article or selection of articles and then the students can post their responses as before, as well as comment on other students’ work. My intention is that all of this becomes more of a class discussion than a private conversation with me.
I also joked last year that I wanted to write my own textbook that would be age appropriate and useful. My plan now is to be have the 8th grade students collaborate with me on this project using a wiki space.
I presented all of this to my assistant principal today and she was completely behind all of it.
Excelsior!
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