Thing # 4

After starting our blogs last week, I found myself wanting to do it more. I've had some experience on networking sites, but this is so different. It's more reflective then some I've done in the past. I found my self wanting to write so frequently, but stopped myself. Then on our "snow day" yesterday, I wanted to write this blog, but had left my notes on my keyboard at school, should have used my Writeboard. Oh, technology, what would we do without it?

Blog writing in general is so much more informal than any other form of writing we encounter, especially in our life-long learning process. In school, we are taught that the English language has rules, and that these rules must be followed. All sentences, must begin with a capital letter, they can not and should not have contractions, our punctuations should be used sparingly and get our point across. We should not be too concise or too wordy....... etc. Oh yeah, no abbreviations. Now, with blog writing, the process, or should I say ART, of writing has become much more personal. A person can express what they truly have to say. They can be as wordy as they want, or express themselves in one word. Finally! In blogs we can show our emotions with Emoticons :) :( :P or our anger with ALL CAPS. We have even in a new sense created a new language the IM/Text language. LOL! :) As we come into our own process we are expected to follow these same procedures in our own profession, and if that profession is teaching, we then pass on a life-time of rules to these new, young up-and-comers. We then scorn and reprimand them from using the language that they have grown up with. The blog writing/texting/im-ing era is upon us.

I love blog reading, and I especially loved what the article SSR 2.0 had to say. This article made me have an "ah-ha". We have our D.E.A.R. time daily, usually while I'm accelearating a "small" group of kids, but we strive for it. Reading is so integral, I try to instill this in my students, however for some of them, it's difficult, not quite stimulating enough. This article made me realize that it's not the books, or the lack of wanting to read, it's the act of reading. They have one source to keep their attention, that book. In SSR 2.0, the teacher allowed their class to do their reading on-line, in blogs. What a wonderful idea! : - O Where was I on this one? After reading this blog, my mind was racing. Blog reading allows the participant to consume their content, not only create it (SSR 2.0). Consuming content creates a symbiotic realtionship, the reader is learning and personalizing what they are reading, as the writer is sharing their experiences, what a novel idea! But in the same sense, as we are consuming this, we are practicing our much needed skills. We are scanning our text for important pieces of information, we are summarizing to ourselves what we've just read, we are making connections with things we have already read, or with things we could possible read through links. WOW!

The blog How to Prevent Another Leonardo da Vinci scared me to be quite honest. The notes I wrote for myself were... WOW! I couldn't have summed it up any better. To think, that in our trying to "help" our students, we are actually hindering them from becoming everything that they could. WOW! Davinci, one of the greats, and we aren't allowing our kids to get to their creativity, how can we tell our selves that we are truly educating our future? For example, in the blog by a young 5th grade student named Patrick, he states "the main thing I'm passionate about is passing fifth grade. The only reasons are because my brother said I'm going to faill all the grades. I plan to get smarter. So now I am planning to pass every grade..." As educators, our first response is how sad, oh look at his grammar, he's obviously not on grade level. But let's think, by allowing him to post this blog, he's enabling himself, creating self-confidence. His educators are allowing him to see that he can do anything, and creating that drive in him. That educator is also modeling the correct grammar responses through their responses. English is being taught on a computer not out of a book. When reading his responses Patrick can see what verb tense, or pronouns are appropriate where, how to correctly punctuate a sentence etc. What an amazing concept! By commenting on his blog, that instructor showed Patrick, that what he had to say mattered, and it allowed a "teachable moment" without "instruction". Amazing. This punctuates with me like the Why I Don't Assign Homework article did as well. His views are so controversial, but make so much sense. Yes, practice is good, but if it's not perfect practice, it's just a waste of time. We should be using our class time more effectively. For example, not requiring students to create a set number of powerpoint slides, and snowballing them into reading word for word off of them. How amazing of an idea, to sum up as much as possible, in as little words as possible, sort of like blog writing!?

BLOGS!? Hmm.......