learning about web 2.0

In reading different blogs on education, I discovered several things.  First, I found that blog reading and writing is very different from “traditional” reading and writing in education in that writing on a blog about a certain subject or idea seems to be much less formal than writing a paper on a certain topic for people to read.  A Duck with a Blog was made up of students’ coments on where the duck in the playground had gone.  They were one line comments filled with spelling  and grammar errors.  But the students were thinking and writing! 

Most of the Blogs I read were teacher’s posts on lessons they had done in the classroom.  For example Remote Access (Clarence Fischer): Bias in the Classroom  and Questions for One of Our Favorite Authorswere blogs where teachers shared their use of blogging in a lesson.  I found that other teachers who read and commented on these blogs were able to share ideas that would enhance the lesson in the future or use the lessons in their own classroom.  It is a great way for teachers to share ideas.

The most significant aspect from blogging that I found when reading these posts, was the ability of the students to be much more engaged in the lesson.  In Bias in the Classroom, the lesson started as a lesson on how to more efficiently use energy and turned into ways to spot bias in the media and elsewhere.  The students were the ones who steered the lesson in this direction and as a result, I believe probably got more out of the lesson than they would have otherwise.  InQuestions for our Favortie Author- the students were able to post questions for the author of a book that they had all read and get responses from her.  I am sure this inspiried the students for their future writing.  The ultimate example of blogging empowering sutdents would be Twenty-Five Days to Make a Difference (Laura Stockman): It Doesn’t Matter if You’re 6 or 26 or 106.   Here an eight year old girl has  set up a blog describing how she has found ways to make a difference in the world.  Herblog and video has inspired other students across the world to start projects to make a difference.