Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Blogs in the Classroom
As technology is advancing, it is our responsibility to incorporate it (as much as possible) into our classroom. A blog is a great way to have constant contact with classmates and teachers. I teach 9th grade Algebra, which can be a very confusing subject for some students. Math can be a tough subject. However, if I were to create a classroom blog students would be able to post their questions about certain problems. In addition, I could post daily announcements, notes and assignments. This way, if students are absent or miss a class, they can easily access what we did in class. I think it would make my life a little easier because I wouldn't have 5 students coming to me each day asking "What did we do?" Has anyone ever tried this? I would be interested to see if it works. Also, the great thing about a blog is that you can create a user name, so students can ask questions using their user name. I know that some students may be embarrassed or too shy to ask certain question, they may think their question is “dumb”. However, using a blog they can be anonymous. By having students interact on a blog, it will also give me a better idea of how students are doing. If there are several questions on a similar topic, then I know I need to spend more time on that subject. Has anyone created a blog for a math class out there? If so, how did you use it? Did it work? Anyone got any ideas? I would love to hear them.
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So you are in the same boat as me...trying to integrate the technology besides calculators in a Math class. I'm using an online video lesson that's linked to my flipchart to see if it draws any interest. I also have access to a laptop cart so my students can each use laptops in class. My Statistics students will be doing a Webquest were they are given some websites to research Top 10 roller coaster thrill rides. The collect data and make an Excel spreadsheet with graphs then create a brochure of their top 3. I didn't get to fully implement it last year, but I am going to do it again this year.
ReplyDeleteI agree that blogging can give students the opportunity to respond or impose questions on a more anonymous level wher ethey may be more hesitant in class.
I also like the idea of anonymous posting. When looking at math blogging, I would think that you could ask questions relating to real world scenarios of the problems you are working. Have the students write their own word problems and have other students solve them.
ReplyDeleteYou could also have students read articles like the ones at the links below. Then the students could use the blog to discuss the articles and their relevance to the math class.
http://www-users.math.umd.edu/~jnd/Algebraic_word_problems.pdf
http://www.homeschoolmath.net/teaching/why_need_square_roots.php
Sorry...this comment box wouldn't let me write the html code to make the links active.
I use a calendar / planbook program to post assignments to a webpage that students have access to. They then can check the homework and class activities they missed. It cuts down on the "what did we do yesterday" but it is not their natural instinct yet. I started out with blogs as the carrier of this info, but found them to be more difficult for students to find what they were looking for especially if the blog was used for questions in addition to posting of assignments. Here is my calendar to see how it works...
ReplyDeletehttp://homepage.mac.com/hermanson/calendar/Honors%20Biology/September2008.html