First, the obvious--pass.
Second, I'd like to get a better understanding of how some tools, like this blog, can be used to help younger students find greater academic achievement and engagement. It's a no-brainer to figure out why middle school/high school students are attracted to social networking tools. Texting is the modern version of note-passing. However, elementary students lack keyboarding skills, and many of the tools used by older students may not be appropriate to the learning goals of elementary-aged kids.
Finally, I want to continue to explore new tools and new thoughts on how to best integrate all these cool options into student learning. Because learning is still the goal. I think.
I just joined a group in the Classroom 2.0 Ning that is for elementary teachers. You might want to check that out. It has examples of teachers who have their students blogging and creating podcasts. It may be that the very young students would post visual things in their blogs. I think VoiceThread is ideal for that type of thing.
ReplyDeleteSomewhere recently I also saw a tool that read out textual posts. I'll have to look for that.
With primary students, it all comes back to what do we want to get out of something like blogs. Do we want them to practice writing for an audience and getting feedback? Do we want them to share something they created with another group or groups and get feedback or similar products back for compare and contrast? Do we want them to connect with "experts" outside the school?