One thing I love about the blogs and wikis I browsed through are the links that are able to be shared that may not have been otherwise. I love that students could be sharing these ideas and assisting their peers by gathering and interpreting information found online. It's great for group projects too, which was brought up in one of the articles. Rather than having to get groups together in class or at school, groups can do their part on their own time by adding their info to their blog or wiki.
My one concern with using classroom blogs and wikis is how much student access my kids would really have. I work in an inner city school where most students don't have a computer or internet access at home. I worry that requiring them to blog or access assignments would be unfair since some may not have the necessary tools at home. We do have a few computers in the class, but I can see it being time consuming having 20 to 25 kids rotate on to access the blogs. I may just have to draw out deadlines to allow ample time, but of course you still want the material to be relevant by the time everyone has finished accessing it. Any ideas on how this problem could be solved?
The school that I work in is in a low income community and assigning computer homework is out of the question. I have to find a way to solve the same problem you have. We have a 45 minute computer lab time once a week and I only have 2 student computers in my classroom. This is a very hard problem to solve. How do we get anything done? Most of our computer lab time is spent entering tests anyway! I am bound and determined to break projects up into smaller little pieces of time so we can manage our time better...I don't have any ideas to help you out, but I do feel your pain! Good Luck!
ReplyDeleteDo you have a library with computers where students can go in at lunch or before/after school and spend about 5-10 minutes? What about the computer lab at these times? Is it monitored or is locked? What about study halls? Can students leave their study halls for 5-10 minutes to go to any of these available computers (if they are available?) about once or twice a week?
ReplyDeleteI do see the problem of only 2 or 3 students being able to access a computer in your class during a period. Can you assign certain students certain "log in days"? So students A, B, and C would log in right at the beginning of class on Mondays, students D, E, and F would log in at the last part of class on Mondays, students G, H, and I would log in at beginning of Tuesday...and so on. This would mean they would miss out on what is happening in class during their time...
just brainstorming for you in text...
We have small group/center time every day during which I meet with a group, a group is at their desks working on something, and then a group is on the computer. Our school and district is very strict about using certain programs that we have paid for (compass learning, destination math, etc). Our minutes are monitored on those sites and we have to have so many minutes, but I'm thinking that I'll have the kids get onto the blog/wiki for the first 5 min, then go to the district mandated sites. Not every group gets on the computer every day, but they would every two or three days, and if for some reason they can't (as we all know schedules have a tendency to get off track), we also have morning work time which they could log on during. So it could be worked in, it would just be a matter of making sure everyone has found time to get on.
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