One of the methods I use to transform my classroom into one for 21st century learners is by using a class blog. I love it as a tool for communicating, collaborating, creating and enabling out of school learning. It has many features such as:
- links to web sites and information- enable students to have the same information as the teacher and to access it easily
- wikis- allow collaborative work and us to create documents which build on others' work
- student projects- multi-media creations such as podcasts, movies, animations and cartoons
- links to social media such as digg, del.icious, technorati, fickr, blogs
- eacher created posts to emphasize an idea
- thought provoking links to stimulate critical thinking and essential questions
- various widgets communicating anything from blog visitors to recommended books
- many links to web 2.0 tools to communicate creatively
The main purposes of our class blog are:
- for each student to learn about, communicate and express opinions on a subject of their own choosing
- for each student to develop a global on-line learning network or community from whom they learn and to whom they communicate their learning
- for each student to share their critical thinking projects on their blog in a creative way
- to provide the teacher with a convenient platform to encourage and enable students to communicate, create, collaborate and to extend their learning beyond the classroom.
My class blog is one of the 21st century tools I have to bring about transformative change to my classroom.
I think this is going to be an interesting school year!
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