Thing # 4

Thing #4

I enjoyed reading five of the post as instructed.



The ones I chose are as follows:



Why I Don't Assign Homework

Is this SSR 2.0?

Spies Like Us

Teaching Brevity

Power Point Reform - A First Chapter



Each of these blogs was interesting and brought up points to consider for our schools. The homework premise of Mr. Meyer that homework is connected directly to teacher shortcomings and has no other benefit for the students that really need the practice deserves consideration.

The second blog about getting students to read. Whether they read a blog or a book is brilliant! We started our youngest daughter reading on magazines and comic books. She is a constant reader now at age 18 and has been since at least middle school. So I agree that students need to be hooked into reading and once that is done the love grows. So just start them reading. If this is done with little effort or resistance from the students it sounds like a success.

I feel like this post illustrated the fact that blog reading is totally different from reading a book. The blogs I selected to read were all about current events and interesting to me because of that. They were written in common language and easy to read and understand. I gained a lot of information from the blogs. Several included personal experiences and others included research with their sources listed. That way I could look at the source myself for better understanding. The resource is easily accessible too. You can just highlight and go directly to the source. You do not have to go to the library, look for the book source you need and check it out which is a much more time consuming process. For a society that is drive thru oriented this is a perfect fit.

When I read for leisure I enjoy reading books that entertain me. Like a mystery, psychological thriller, or romance. Therefore, when I read a blog the objective is totally different. The blogs are more like watching reality TV. Whatever I have read thus far is about something that directly involved the author as well as research on the interest. But not something that is written totally to entertain. I do know that entertaining blogs exist and I have read a few. Those are written by totally creative people who are capable of writing a novel I would choose to read.

All in all blog reading is an excellent source for reading experiences and current research. I feel that it is similar to other reading in that you are gaining information through written form. The info may be about your direct interest with well documented easy to access sources. Where as a classroom reading assignment may have been written decades ago and not in current jargon about something that is currently taking place in a students life. A blog often offers the reader an opportunity to comment on the subject matter as well. Giving the student an opportunity to express his/her opinion directly to the writer and receive a response. A book does not afford such communication between the writer and the reader.

I feel that blogging facilitates learning because we are digesting information presented by someone else and have the opportunity to comment back and forth with the author which really makes me think my stance through and may even encourage me to research and provide sources to back up my opinion in order to impact the thinking of the author. So I do see blogging as an excellent tool to use in classroom learning.

Until next time. cc