Thursday, May 28, 2009

Blogging in the classroom : A window of opportunity

As all my readers know, I have been blogging for sometime. However, I would like to point out that I really do not know everything about blogging. As my dear friend Carla Arena said "There is no recipe on how to blog."
My first impressions when I discovered blogging were as if a window, better a large door, had oppened in front of my eyes. I saw and still see blogging as a great opportunity to engage in meaningful conversations with my students. Better still, I see it as an opportunity for them to have conversations among themselves and with people outside the classroom walls.
Bloging in class has allowed me to see how gifted my students are in many areas. It opened my eyes to see and discover things about them that I would not have discovered otherwise. And I am sure it gave them opportunities to make discoveries and to get skills that are useful for them in the present and that will certainly be very helpful in their future.
The picture I chose also shows, in my opinion, that blogging is also challenging. There are lots of possibilities, but sometimes they are not so easy to visualize. We have to open the door and walk the blogging path with our students. It is a big challenge to keep the conversation going. We teachers have to teach our students how to comment, we have to talk about the importance of replying to comments, and so on.

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2 comments:

Erika Oya said...

Dear Zé,

I agree with you when you say that blogging in the classroom is a window of opportunity. There are so may possibilities to make it useful...but I think the important step is to take the risk and get started! Thanks for helping me when I need. Thanks for your patience and finally thanks for letting me learn so much from you.
All the best,
Erika

joseantonio said...

Hi Erika,
Sorry for the delay in replying to you. It was really nice of you to leave a comment.
You are so right: there are lots of possibilities for blogging in class. No need to thank for helping you. I think now that you are already hooked to the web, it will be even better to help you out. We could work on projects together with our students.
Cheers
JA