Wednesday, June 27, 2007

First, I need to say that I have been a blog fan for years; I regularly “tune in” and contribute to several of a very personal nature focused on topics of interest to me.

My goal in learning about online teaching is to “hybridize” the Multicultural Literature course that I teach to students in 4 high schools through the Northern Lights Instructional Television Network. Discussion, cooperative learning—these don’t work well for me in the ITV setting, particularly when I have just one or two students at one site, and 12 at another, when bell schedules and calendars differ.

Prior to reading this Module’s assignments I had wondered how an edublog could be an assessment tool, but this became clear when I got to the “Formative and Summative” segment in the Lee and Allen article. I believe so much in providing formative feedback to students, and this is really difficult in an ITV class, where individual written assignments are mailed to me or transported on the CESA van. The time lag is not conducive to helping students learn and improve.

The quote that I highlighted and will use as a kind of justification for developing course blogs is this: “Students have the opportunity to review other’s postings and responses to subject matter, to compare their knowledge and comprehension level, and to benefit from the shared strategy uses they and their peers employ.”

For me, the challenges of developing and using blogs will be:
-constraints imposed by web filters at each of the school districts enrolled in my course
-whether I can “mandate” that students create and use blogs
-whether blogging should be done strictly as a kind of “homework” or whether I can build time into the class period for online discussion and reflection.