Well, my professor didn’t care much for my blogging idea either. His comments, in red. “The two things that bother me a little are first, that it was hard to know the goal or the point to these. Why are kids blogging, for example?” Should I have to tell HIM that? It is in his book!
tenets are essentially to encourage pupils to initiate their own learning experiences, with an emphasis on their being able to ‘construct’ their own set of mental representations, topics, and issues,” (Tiene & Ingram, 2001, p. 76)
(or is he saying I didn’t explain my reasons well.)
This assignment, at its very core, is constructivism. This project on blogging, correctly executed, teaches the students that they can learn on their own and write about subjects that they have a passion about. To write a post on the BLOG, the students browse, read and think about what is most interesting to them and then write about it.
If they are to blog about almost anything, then that seems to put a lot of responsibility on them. Why?
because they learn better if they can construct their own topics and issues. He says so, in his book, So is his question that we didn’t explain why or is he really asking why?
I feel really bad on this point because the blog was my responsibility and my team members had all sorts of guidelines and rules they wanted to add to the blog section. But I wore them down because I thought that it took away from the spirit of constructivism, which is what we were writing about.
I never heard of constructivism before this class. I’m not an educator, but I do know that I learn when I am excited about learning, and I thought how exciting to begin 6th graders on constructivist activities. I was so excited about what I learned in the textbook that I started a blog about my learning process. And that is where I got the idea about the blog. I had also read about blogs in Will Richardson’s book about Blog, Wikis, and Podcasts. He gave examples of some elementary classrooms that used blogs as a learning tool. I looked those blogs up and they were really cool.
Second, I’m not clear on how assessment will done for these.
Why must everything be assessed? Can’t learning be for fun, at least some of the time? I’m not a teacher, how would I know if everything should be assessed, especially for 6th graders? Is there something I should know here?
Debate: Bill (alias) and I aren’t teachers, not sure about Kim (alias). So I don’t understand how we are supposed to think like teachers and write effective scenarios for elementary school students.
errrr………………
References:
Jonassen, D.H. (1998). Computers as mind tools for engaging learners in critical thinking. TechTrends, 43, 24–32.
Jonassen, D., Howland, J., & Marra, R., (2011). Meaningful learning with technology (4th Edition) (Kindle Locations 595–596). Allyn & Bacon. Kindle Edition.
Tiene, D. & Ingram, A. (2001). Exploring current issues in educational technology.
New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
MaryAnne Nestor 