Blogs and Wikis in Education

1) Identify and describe 3 interesting/innovative ways blogs and/or wikis are being used in K-12 classrooms.
Some classrooms are keeping their own blogs or updating their own wikis. This allows the class to chronicle its learning and makes changes to what they have learned as they learn more about a topic which clarifies what they have learned. Another way classrooms are using blogs is they are following someone else’s blog related to a subject they are learning about. If the students are learning about space and the teacher is able to find a blog by an astronaut or someone working at NASA, it would allow the students to learn from an expert on the topic and spark a greater interest than just hearing it from the teacher. The final interesting way is they are collaborating with classrooms around the country. A class can develop a project with a classroom anywhere in the country each can update a blog or wiki about they learned that day. So if the classroom in Maine makes a discovery that the students in Washington missed they can go back and figure out why this happened. They can add to each other’s knowledge and allow each of the classrooms to formulate theories and questions based on the information each is providing to the other.

2) Describe how you might use RSS readers/aggregators within a classroom setting.
RSS readers could be a very helpful tool in the classroom. For example there are many blogs where ideas on a topic are being posted. Rather than as a class or having the teacher check back every day, but whenever something new is posted they will be notified and this will save class time. Another way they can be used is many people write blogs about what they are learning or experiencing. If your class is following say someone who is one a trip to another country that you are learning about the teacher will be able to schedule the class time and whenever ever they are notified there s a new post by that person.

3) Describe at least 2 pros and 2 cons of using blogs and wikis in education.
With everything on the internet there are pros and cons to each with blogs and wikis there a lot of these they allow the class to do. For example a class can post a blog or update a wiki daily to show what they learned about the concept. This allows the teacher to assess what knowledge the students are gaining daily, but also gives parents a chance to check out what the student it learning. Also using blogs or wiki’s give the students computer practice. It gives them a chance to use the internet in a safe supervised environment. It also gives them a chance to practice things such as typing and spelling while on the computer. However, on the other hand using blogs and wikis can also be negative. Since any one is allowed to provide information on their own blog or add it to a wiki sometimes the information the students are encountering that is false or biased. So as the teacher it is very important that we check and verify and the information we are allowing our students to read. The second is tasks on the computer may be difficult compared to the amount of resources a classroom or a school has. If a class only has one computer it would be very time consuming to work as a whole to and give one student the chance to try and type of what they have learned.