Blogging for All!
I would use blogs in my music classroom for reflections of music. Each Friday my students partake in Favorite Friday, where select students choose some of their favorite songs, past or present, and their classmates reflect on each song. I ask them to write at least three things about the song using musical terms, such as beat, lyrics, or certain instruments. I usually have them write this on paper and most students write very little. I believe that if I opened this up to a blog, many more students would be interested. An aspect I really like about blogging is commenting. I think my students could really get into commenting on each others posts since it is extremely similar to Facebook or Instagram. They would be able to comment and discuss what they like or didn't like about each song and maybe learn more about the song or artists and gain some sort of appreciation for it in a way they didn't before.
I would also have students use blogging as a reflection for their projects. I have students write songs and they use an online notation to help them. They could post their song and their experience while writing it. Others could comment on what they liked about the song and discuss their experiences of writing their first song.
I am not great at keeping journals or writing about my day, so I am hoping blogging will stick as a form of journaling for me. I love blogging for professional development because it becomes a network of teachers all over the world. I could be blogging about an obstacle in my classroom and someone from California can comment with a helpful solution. So often we reach out to those we know from college or previous schools to ask advice, but it can be so beneficial to hear from others that had different training and experiences. I also love blogging for the reason that you can find information on almost anything for free! For example, I love to crochet and most of the patterns I use come from bloggers who post their patterns right to their blog. Imagine that same idea for a classroom! I find many worksheets and games to use in my classroom from other music teachers. This is especially great for a subject like music, where creating worksheets can be difficult due to the musical language symbols not being available.
Performance Indicator - ESL.I.5-8.4.1.1:
Students use a variety of oral, print, and electronic forms of social communication and for writing to or for self, applying the conventions of social writing.
Performance Indicator - ESL.I.5-8.4.1.2:
Students describe, read about, participate in, or recommend a favorite activity, book, song, or other interest to various audiences.
The NYS Learning Standards can all be found online.
I deeply agree that blogs make students less stressed! I had similar experience with you. I was very nervous because I needed to pay a lot of attention to the proficiency of the words I used when I was writing a journal or an essay. However, blogs can be the places for me to express my ideas more freely. That's the reason why I would love to introduce blogs into my classroom for my students. I hope they can have some time and places to get their voice heard by others without feeling pressured!
ReplyDeleteInformation can be shared widely in blogs. Teachers in the same area can learn a lot of techniques from others to improve our teaching!
I'm hoping that I can also get into a better routine of using blogs to create my network of ESL teachers who can actively share lessons, activities, materials and experiences. As for students, I, personally have never used blogging in the classroom. I am about to begin my field experience at the high school level and look forward to implementing this in the classroom.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of Favorite Friday is awesome! I wish I could do something like that in my classes! I think that the idea of commenting on the blogs is so great too. I think that, with a few exceptions--because there are always few--kids are really kind and want to post something friendly or fun to a classmate and talking about music is such a great way of bringing them together.
ReplyDeleteI came back to this post to look at my learning standards and just wanted to say that I have started having students blog in the classroom, especially on FF! Most like it, a couple do not like the writing portion of the lesson at all. I think it's a win overall!
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