What if your blog was gone?
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Ore : 8:53 p.m.
Kids: they dance before they learn there is anything that isn't music.
~William Stafford
Let's say you develop a well entrenched Online Learning Environment (OLÉ!) for your classes .... then one day .... the blog is gone ....
That's exactly what happened to
Konrad Glogowski and he wrote about it in a post on his blog called
Tools Interiorized.
The reactions of Konrad's students were remarkable. I asked my students to respond to these two questions:
»Is our classroom blog valuable to you? If yes, how so?
»How would you feel if our blog suddenly went offline and couldn't be recovered?
They left their answers in the comments to this post .....
(Thank you to all my students who volunteered to help out with this. And don't worry, our blogs are safe and they're not going offline.)
posted by Darren Kuropatwa at 8:53 p.m.
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My Classroom blog is a really big part of my life. Without it. I’d be lost in math and that’s really true. Sometimes in class. I kind of lose my focus when Mr. K is teaching. Especially when it’s something I already learned in the past. So I read the blog to get me up to speed on the class. Especially if I missed a class. “I never miss a class” But usually I use the blog for a resource of my class on the web. If you look at it Quote Mr. K. “You’re writing the text book for the course” And that is true. Everything I read on the blog has helped me in some ways. Weather it’s a Scribe post that taught me something that I didn’t catch in class or a Reflection before the test that just ultimately says, “Good luck guys you’ll need it.” It gave me my hope to do well on a test. And to study as much as possible. I have friends that I can only talk to on the blog. And I have to help them too. For example my post.
Bloggers’ R’ Us has helped allot of my fellow students on the blog learn blogger. In summary of this the blog has become the most important resource of all, more than anything you can find on the internet today. It really helps me and my fellow classmates.
Well if the blog went offline and couldn’t be recovered… I’d cry. Literally. Because I know I would be probably be failing math right now without the blog. Then I’d probably would be in utter shock and just drop the course thinking that there is no way I can do this without the blog. To be honest I have become totally dependent on the blog as a resource on mathematics. It will just make me lose all hope on passing this course in the first place. Everyone else I know that contributes to the blog too would probably feel the same. It’s as if their hopes and dreams were crushed because the blog is gone. Well what I am trying to say is that the blog disappeared then I wouldn’t take PreCal anymore.
- Malcolm
Our Blog is really helpful not only to me but I think to our whole class including Mr. Kuropatwa because it's like having our own textbook and it's free and this blog helps us also to know our classmates well and also if ever we missed some class we can now catch up with others because of the "Scribe Post" this blog is also a good reference tool now that we have the delicous thing we can now look at other web sites that can help us to unbderstand more deeply some topics also through this blog we can show our ideas to others. This blog post is like an extended class because almost everyone in our class is involve even the teacher.It's a good use of resources like the internet that I believe almost all of people here in Canada now have.
If the blog went offline that will be a BIG disappointment for all of us imagine the things we've lost.
WOW! The comments here are super long!
Firstly, I would like to put out some things that I personally think about when the focus is on our blog.
Long ago, before who would have thought about a blogspot for learning, didn't teachers and students have success without? I personally find the blogspot useful during certain periods of time; when I don't remember what is for homework, when I'm stuck and need some help, and or when I'm unprepared for an oncoming test. Otherwise, if the our blog went down, It wouldn't really put a dent in me. I don't enjoy relying on things way too much. It would just go back to normal with old time studying and find out yourself methods until tomorrow.
Now that that is clear and out of my mind, I must say that a blog can and is greatly enhancing learning for students! The most important point of a Online Learning Enviroment is communication between the class and the teacher.
For one, it helps students such as I because number 1, scribe posts can quickly update you on anything that you've missed if you were sick or anything related to that. Next to updating, im sure that lots of people forget what's for homework, so that fills them in aswell.
Secondly, you can ask for help in the local chat box on things that you are confused about etc.
Thirdly, you can use the new added del.icio.us box which is filled with sites found by students to help other students in their process of learning.
Fourth, I find that it greatly helps the teacher (Mr. K) find out what he needs to slow down on if the class is confused or doesnt understand because I greatly dislike seeing friends do poorly on tests because they simply didn't understand to a full extent.
Finally, what I find most helpful about our blog is when Mr. K puts up practice quizzes up before the coming unit test. That has saved me many times when I really felt like I needed more practice. I really find that most helpful (personally).
So, like Mr. K says, we are writing our own textbook so our blogspot and posts can only get better. I really believe that our blog improves learning greatly.
