Initial Thoughts:
I have played around with blogging several years ago in my personal life, mainly to get photos of my kids out to family and friends who don't live close to us who were resistant to Facebook. Professionally, I haven't used it because I have a Google site that I use for class or my school used one of the plethora of web based classrooms (Edmodo, Gaggle, etc...). I have used KidBlog for students to use as a daily writing journal, but I didn't actively publish posts.
Changed Thoughts and Changing Uses:
This course has reminded me of the practical place that having a blog resides in the social media / web based spectrum. Twitter and Remind are great for short blurbs and reminders and my website is tough to update from my mobile, so my blog could fit neatly in that gap.
My main plan for future usage is to become an active contributor in the PLN community. I have a decent PLN through Twitter but at this point I am lurking. I do have a good Twitter presence with a number of good followers, so I really just need to capitalize on what currently exists there. I can see my initial impact being here locally at Castleberry ISD in applying technology in the classroom, I am an early adopter and I regularly swing (and miss) with technology in my lessons and projects. I feel that I can contribute by blogging the process of applying that technology and providing a forum to discuss the ways to make it a better lesson.
Limitations:
The main limitation that I see is specific to my community (and others like it), my kid's parents just aren't involved in technology or social media. Our students are all over social media but their parent's don't engage in social media with the school or teachers. From what I have seen, our parents use Facebook to communicate with family and that is about it. It would be interesting to see if they would respond positively to a "Intro to Twitter" course on during registration or during Parent's University. We could also work that into a video / web course (available in English and Spanish) so that they could view that when convenient.
Tyler, the idea of sharing the strategies you have used to infuse technology in your classroom is a great way to begin your blogging journey! I look forward to reading your posts!
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of teaching parents how they could interact with their teachers through social media. I agree that most of our parents only use social media to keep up with family and friends through Facebook. Illustrating for them the possibilities at registration or Parent U is a great idea, and Tyler, I will definitely be getting with you. You have given me a great project idea for my English 2 PAP students for 2nd/3rd six weeks.
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