C4Tp #3

The Possibilities of Student Blogging

In this Langwitches post, the positive effects of students maintaining a blog are discussed. Silvia Tolisano, the website creator, has posted a video one of her colleagues filmed. In the video, Andrea Hernandez discusses the many ways that student blogging is beneficial to not only her students, but other students around the world. She talks about how they utilize a system of "quad-blogging" in which four different classrooms around the world are involved. The four classrooms in the video consist of the United States, Czech Republic, Switzerland and Thailand.  The students are able to learn about other parts of the world by having such diverse cultures actively participating with one another. The primary goal of the blog use is better quality writing. This better quality of writing will come after the student views critiques from the other global students.
Ms. Hernandez also talks about how important it is for the teacher to create the connections for the students. The educator must use their Personal Learning Network in order to set up an educational system such as "quad-blogging". This requires the teacher to be digitally active with resources such as Twitter to make these connections. The educator is able to bring a higher method of learning to their students by having these relationships built.  

Documenting FOR Learning

Ms. Tolisano discusses the importance of documentation in an educational setting in this post. She begins by stating that she had only used documentation in professional settings for use by other educators. By expanding how documenting is used, she sees that it can be used by many types of people besides educators. Ms. Tolisano shows that it can be useful for Teachers, Students and even School/Districts. Students are able to showcase their work and grade their learning growth. They are also able to create an electronic portfolio of their accomplishments. Schools/Districts are able to use documentation for parent/community involvement, attract employees, and develop their employees. Teachers are also able to create a portfolio, reflect and change lesson plans if needed, and evaluate their teaching methods through their students' progress.

Documenting gives the ability to make a record of past methods and reflect upon them. This reflection can lead to the creation of more effective methods for Teachers, Students, and Schools. She also gives a list of tools she uses for documenting: "Videos, Photos, Notes, Tweets, Blogs and so on." She is showing that documenting can be an important way of reflecting upon your past experiences in order to improve your future educational methods.