Blogs

1. What are the "affordances" and "constraints" of the technology? In other words, what does the technology allow us to do or prevent us from doing? 
    -It allows students to present a bunch of learned/researched information in their own words, and allows others to read and comment on what they learn. It also allows that student to read and comment on the research of his peers. Reading blogs in the words of the students also helps the students understand the researched item because it puts it into the voice of a child of the same age level, easily understood and easily relatable. A constraint could be that all the blog posts and their responses cannot be discussed fully in class, so the children need to read all of them to get a full understanding of the researched items of the other students.


2. What new skills do we need to teach the students?
     -We'd need to teach the students how to blog, what website to use. We'd have to teach them what is appropriate, and what is not, and explain what kind of content we expect from them.


3. What will I need to do differently in terms of how I teach in the classroom? How will teaching and learning look different?
     - If there is a big question that relates to a lesson, and everyone has their own special opinion about it, but there isn't enough time in class, it might be a good idea to have them blog about it. Then,  they can read and respond to others, and get a better feeling and understanding about the subject they're discussing, and it might promote some interest. They will be able to learn from talking/blogging amongst themselves rather than from listening via the teacher.


4. How does the technology help me foster creativity, innovation, and some of the other 21st century skills?
     -It helps foster creativity because it allows the students to freely express themselves, and to express their opinions and to speak their minds- all within a realm of propriety.


5. What are some ways I can use this technology in the classroom?
      - To talk about main ideas or topics of a lesson. Or if there are multiple battles in a war, for example, the students can be assigned a battle to investigate, they can blog about it, and then read the other blogs to get a feel about what the other battles were like. Then they can discuss it a bit in class, but overall it saves a lot of time.