Comments on: Blogging 101--Web logs go to school

As a middle-school teacher, Clarence Fisher is used to spending time grading papers and reviewing lesson plans. But this year he's got an additional task: updating student blogs.

[anspn]

SchoolParentNet

Very nice article....you may also find what we are doing interesting...

SchoolParentNet is an online social network for PreK-12 parents. Parents get connected with other parents from their child's class, grade, school and district. Many online tools (such as forums and blogs) are used by parents to communicate and interact with each other - learn more by taking a Tour (http://www.schoolparentnet.com/tour.htm). Our company's mission is to foster strong supportive local parent communities and to get parents more involved with the school.

Our website market-launch was timed to coincide with the start of the new school year. We have parents users signed-up from across the nation: 15+ states and 150+ schools so far. What is really interesting is that we have some classroom moms engaged and writing blogs - using these to communicate with class parents, organize parties etc (for example they list the items needed for a party and parents from the class are adding comments to their blogs and signing-up for different items/tasks - the blog therefore becomes an online sign-up sheet).

If you are a parent, you can start the registration process by going to our home page (www.schoolparentnet.com) and clicking on Register Now.

[Earl Benser]

Education needs to get serious...

Blogs are NOT a valid school subject. Blogs are a sloppy
communications technique, rarely containing anything really
worth while, and rank just one notch above text messaging on
cell phones. We've got kids who can't add, can't read, and can't
write in real sentences, and wouldn't know a verb if it bit them.
There's where the real education effort needs to be placed. Sure,
that's not 'fun', and kids do want to play rather than learn, and
teachers seem to go out of their way to avoid being actual
teachers.

Sorry folks, but US kids need real help, not junk like this teacher
is peddling. As noted, "... Fisher is among a small but growing
number of teachers and professors experimenting with
classroom blogs...." And maybe that defines the real situation.
The kids are experiments in arcane educational techniques by
educators more interested in notoriety than success, and where
failure is basically irrelevant.

But that's okay. I make good money teaching 10th graders the
math they should have learned in 2nd grade. And I have an
associate who teaches basic reading skills to these same kids. Of
course, you have to accommodate sport schedules, and vacation
schedules, and school trip schedules, and 'too busy parent'
schedules, and every other conflict people can dream up.

And people wonder why the US is getting stomped in
education???????

[smcgui5]

Is this what it comes down to?

I have to agree with the last post. We really need to start getting back to basics with education. There's nothing wrong with teaching a computer litercay class, however, where do we draw the line? We are in a definite information age, but we also need to understand that the information relies heavily people to create it. Those people who help deliver this information to the public, are brilliant mathmeticians, who can speak, read, write, and comprehend basic language structure. How do we expect kids tro learn if we plop them down in front of a PC and tell them to have fun?

Oh dear...

There are plenty of valid school subjects. The ability to communicate effectively, to organise your thoughts, to interest other people in what you say and so on. Writing weblogs is an extremely good way of doing this.

The comment 'blogs are a sloppy communications technique' really says a great deal - clearly Benser has only looked at a small number of them and made his mind up, then firmly closed it. I get a great deal of extraordinarily useful information from weblogs; they are not just diaries. Most, in fact all of the weblogs that I read are written by very intelligent people who have points to make, and they do so very well. It is because they are good at this that I read them - it's a very positive form of feedback, since I comment on what they've said, and information is shared back and forth.

I agree entirely that children need to be able to read and write correctly, and in order to do this they actually need to do that - sit and write. They also need to read what other people have written, and using weblogs as a tool is an excellent way of doing that. To merely deride them as a waste of time or 'junk' simply indicates that the author really hasn't studied the subject properly if at all. I wonder if he also thinks that writing a diary is 'junk' and a waste of time? I presume that he must, since the only real difference is that one is handwritten and the other is typed.

This is a very sad little piece with very little merit to it, other than to attempt to slam a teacher for trying something different. If we never try different things we are destined to remain where we are.

I also note that the author teachers mathematics. This is probably just as well, since his piece is littered with grammatical errors (you don't start a sentence with 'and' and it's very juvenile to repeat question marks to try and make a point), so perhaps he would be better spending his time learning to use good written English - perhaps he might start by writing a weblog? Which is, as an amusing aside, how I found this piece in the first instance!

What makes me doubtful...

In the abstract I don't see much anything wrong with the idea of using Blogs, as a tool. In theory it covers several bases. Typing, spelling, grammar, and even reading comprehension if the students are supposed to be commenting on something. If the teachers using the Blogs are actually holding the submissions to some kind of standard then I don't really have a problem with the idea.

The article is not clear on that. Which is a little depressing. Mr. Fisher 'reviews' Blogs before approving them, but the only examples of rejected submissions were blatant. Also, how do these submissions work? There is not much skill required to fill in a form and submit it. I wouldn't call it "technical skill". Really what it boils down to is that sort of instruction is far beyond the scope of an English course.

[Stargirl]

What I think

I think it's a good idea to get kids to blog. They can still learn their grammar from blogs. Just because they are typing doesn't mean theey'll change it into slang. They will probably spell everything properly so everyone can understand. Blgging is a good idea for people to tell their feelings and what they think of school. This will also give them time to have fun with computers and learn more about them. Their typing skills will get betetr too. This isn't like the old days when we just used pencil and paper or chalkboards we have technology so we mine as well use it.

[ack_750]

Not a subject for a governing body

I feel that this issue is about the same as congress looking into
steroids in baseball. It is of no concern or buisness to any school
public or private how their students choose to spend their free
time. At school is one thing but at home is the parents
responsibility to police... oh wait a minute I forgot parents have no
responsibility any more for their children in the US, that is the
government or daycare's responsibility.

[callmewilly]

If I know my students are 1) involved in illegal activities outside of the classroom, such as doing drugs, drinking alcohol, or even being in a gang (where the student might be involved in a monthly shooting or drive-by), 2) having trouble at home because of a broken household, either because of abusive parents, divorced parents, or many other examples, or 3) have a "not as serious" problem such as being bullied outside of school or lacking a social life or any other problems that effect how a student performs in the classroom, are you suggesting that as an educator, all of those examples are of no concern to me as I try to educate my students? Any good educator knows that the reason most students are unable to learn is because of problems outside of the classroom, so how am I to educate these students if I don't in some way deal with these problems.

Yes it is unfortunate and truly upsetting that some parents lack the responsibility to raise their children appropriately, but in those cases, am I to just give up on those students and let them fall through the crack? Maybe this philosophy of yours is the reason students lack in basic skills such as reading and writing, and if you are an educator, I feel terrible for your students or any students with a teacher of that philosophy.

One reason blogs can be so effective is because of their potential to motivate students to express their thoughts and ideas and possibly help remove some or all of the problems mentioned above.

[sroper]

Blogs Work

I was just curious...
Did anyone take the time to read any of the student blogs discussed?
I work at the elementary school featured in the article and can attest to the fact that our students benefit immensely from blogging. Their writing improves dramatically throughout the year. It is amazing to watch these 5th graders blossom as writers, especially considering that English is not the primary language of the majority of our students.

[sonthird]

I would agree that blogs have a bad reputation in the educational setting. Educators often view them as merely a chat room. Students are able to use blogs as an online journal or writing tool that allows them to interact with students from around the world. My school district has a strict policy against the use of blogs in the classroom. In fact, we are currently blocked from accessing most of these sites. I find this to be sad, especially since research has shown that technology motivates and empowers students to capture the skills that they are learning. Blogs would enable us to teach the conventions of writing, while enabling students to craft their own personal narratives. Students would be able to recognize the importance of writing clearly and applying the concepts that we have learned, so that others are able to easily read and interpret what they have written. I believe that blogging has endless possiblities related to instruction, I only wish that my district would embrace them!