Teachers Who Blog Engage Students on a Higher Level
As part of the Science at Sea experience, I talked about the many benefit of teachers who blog as part of their classroom experience. At one end of the spectrum you have teachers who are using their school sponsored blogs as a way to effectively communicate with parents or to share classroom assignments with students. On the other end you have very teachers who have found ways to use their blog as a catalyst to get their students (and parents) engaged in the learning process outside of classroom time.
Lisa Heaton uses her blog (www.lisaheaton.com) during her integrated unit on rocketry and literature as her 5th grade GT students read Rocket Boys by Homer Hickham. Lisa found that her students write almost twice as much when they are blogging versus using conventional writing practices. By their very nature, blogs are an interactive forum that encourage students to become engaged in the thoughts and ideas presented by other students in their class. Instead of students merely “pushing” ideas to a teacher to grade, blog posts become a great way for students to agree, disagree
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