Monday, November 23, 2009
BLOGGING AS A WAY TO LEARN!
The idea of students blogging about reading, discussing a novel online with peers as a way to solidify learning is new and exciting for me! It seems like a great way to incorporate your world of technology with my world of the written word. I have been very impressed and totally thrilled with the quality of your posts and the depth with which so many of you are engaging with Holden Caulfield in Catcher In The Rye. Now... please take a moment this week to talk to me about this experience. Good? Bad? Interesting? Boring? What could I do to make it better? How has this experience compared with other novel studies you have done over the years? Any feedback you can give me will be appreciated. In the meantime, Happy Blogging!
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Quite honestly, I think it has improved our understanding of the novel and open our minds to different view points and themes within the novel. It allows us to open discus our opinions, and build upon them.
ReplyDeleteYes, talking in groups does do the same thing, but not at the same level. With the blog, whenever an idea comes to mind, you can go on and let it out of your system, rather than waiting for a day to finally get to discuss it (and you probably forgot it by then anyway).
I think of this to be a an interesting way to express what we think with our peers and they can respond back being able to interact with one another to come up with thoughts and feelings towards the novel. I think its fine the way it is. I find this a lot easier and understandable compared to other things I have done in English.I find this an enjoying experience!
ReplyDeleteI agree with Milena, I think the the blogging has really helped our understanding of the novel. Hearing other opinions on the novel have given us many perspectives to explore and think about. If we were to talk about it in class some people wouldnt say much in fear of what others would think. So in my opinion blogging makes it easier to say what we are actually thinking.
ReplyDeleteI think it was a constant hasle going on and making sure you had to log under what ever you where assigned. This way though we got to learn about different ways to look at what you are reading, besides just characters and what they are going through. I did like learning and hearing what other people say and think about the book. It forced us to express what we where thinking, even if we are the quiteter ones in class!
ReplyDeleteI actually liked the blogging. It was easy to do, and you could get on from anywhere as it was on the internet. It was like having a big class discussion, but where everybody talked; as opposed to the discussions where the quiet kids do not always talk. It's also good because it forces everyone to read the book. It would be tough to comment if you didn't know what you were talking about.
ReplyDeleteI've really enjoyed blogging so far because It's made me have a better understanding about the book and whats going on throughout the chapters. Reading others posts helps me understand different symbols in the book and the themes.
ReplyDeleteI actually really liked reading other people's posts and getting different perspectives on things. I liked being able to just post whenever was convenient for me. I also agree with Cam and Sofia when they said that people that are normally shy in class and don't say much had a chance to express how they felt about topics. Blogging was something new to me as well and I liked it a lot! Although I wish more people would have contributed to the blogs!
ReplyDeleteI've enjoyed the blogging as a way of having a discussion with others in the class. I think it's neat also that it's between two different classes, because you get opinions from even more people.
ReplyDeleteI especially liked it because I could get on it from basically anywhere, as Cam said, so if it was late at night, or I had a random idea I wanted to post, I was able to get my point put out there, instead of having to wait till I got to class to voice my opinion.
I agree with Jasmine though I wish more people had contributed, because it would have made the conversations more interesting to be in, aswell as to read over.
I agree with everyone, and I have enjoyed blogging as well. You have more time to think about your responses, and I agree with Jasmine that it's cool to see everyone else's perspectives on the book. The only problem is if you have a really busy night, and no time to get on the internet, you fall a bit behind on blogging. This has happened to me a few times, but it's easy enough to catch up. I think people are more willing to share their thoughts on this website than in class, so I think blogging is a new, effective way to learn and discuss.
ReplyDeleteI'm really loving your comments so far. One way I think I could make the process better, is not to be so uptight about closing sections down. Dividing the book in half - Sections 1 - 3 and 4 - 6 with feedback at the half-way mark might make more sense. As it is now, I've eased up on closing the sections and I think more people are likely to post and meet the expectations. Comments?
ReplyDeleteWhat did you think about having to post on the different literary elements of the novel?
ReplyDeleteI liked having to post on different literary elements of the novel. It helped us to really search for those specific elements when we were reading, and letting us have the option to choose one or more literary elements as our next blogs helps us to get accross what we think, and what we have questions on.
ReplyDeleteYa i agree. I really like this method. Its really good for the people that do keep up with the book so help understand everything and get different views. Also i think this way makes it easy for a student to study for a test, or write an essay because they can go back to the web site and gather more thoughts.
ReplyDeleteI think that having to post in different literary elements definately makes us think more indepth about the novel than we normally would in a blog that only really asks one question. The different sections totally opened my eyes to more ways of thinking about Holden as a person and the symbolic items like his hat. I really enjoy the blogging idea this year. It's really different and i actually look forward to writting new blogs.
ReplyDeleteTell me this... Did you think you had too much class time to blog? Not enough time in the lab?
ReplyDeleteI think we had about a good amount of lab time and class time. For the people who didnt have a chance to blog at home, they still had that extra time to get what they needed to say in without being pressured and short on time. I'm not a huge blogger myself, but I rather liked doing this. You could see what everyone else was thinking, agree with them and help support what you wanted to say. This was a really good idea Ms. Beebe!!
ReplyDeleteI liked blogging. It's easy to do and it doesn't take a lot of time. I would much rather do this than some booklet where you answer questions about rising action and that kind of stuff. Having to focus on different literary elements allowed me to understand the book more and get more in depth. I read the book 2 years ago and didn't understand it really, other than I thought it was a great book. Now I can see that there are a lot of hidden meanings. Reading what other people had to say was also good because it helped in seeing things in a different perspective.
ReplyDeleteI think there was enough class time for it, and if people didn't use the class time to do it, there was still plenty of time to do it at home.
I agree with Allie, this was a great idea.
I didn't mind blogging. It is a good way to communicate with everyone, I think we had enough time in class to blog. I like your idea about dividing the book into parts and blogging at the half way mark. I did enjoy seeing what other people had to say about the book as well.
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ReplyDeleteI thought it was a pretty good idea to do, but I would definitely change the size of the sections. If they were bigger, we could go more in depth with our subject. Ontop of blogging, it would have been nice if we could have also done some kind of in-class discussion about the sections aswell, as some of us find that better than writing everything down. Overall, it was swell.
ReplyDeleteI didn't mind the blogging. I think its an interesting way to work cooperatively with classmates. I like how we all get different sections to work on and how we have to only blog twice. I hope to get more blogging assignments like this in the future.
ReplyDeleteI liked the idea of the blogging, but it was always a pain to have to log onto the blog and post. I think if we werent so pressured for time to get the sections we needed done it would of been better. I did like how you sectioned it off though, it made it easier for us to comment on what we thought and i learnt a lot more reading what other people said and communicating with them, then i would have if we just talked about it in class.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed bloggin, its interesting to see what everyone else has to say about everything. You also learn from whatever everyone else says. Just sometimes i don't like that people could read everything that i write.
ReplyDeleteI think that it was a good way to express your thoughts and at the same time you get to see how other people feel about the book. It also made it easier to follow along in the book because if you kinda didn't understand something you could see what other people wrote and at times it helped to make things more clear.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Sarah, sometimes it was annoying if you were one of the first people to blog in a section, people would just copy what you said, but word it differently. I didnt really like that, cause you took the time to write what you thought, and someone just copys you.
ReplyDeleteI think the blogging was a good way discuss this noevl for it was easier to do on your own time. It was very open writting but sometimes could be a little annoying that everyone else that is doing this is reading and relating to what you put down.
ReplyDeleteThe blogging idea was pretty cool, at first I thought it was a bit awkward that everyone could see my posts though. But after a while I liked the idea I could see everyones posts and get different prospectives from the class. It was easier to post than to write becuase I was on the computer anways.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I originally had a really bad feeling about having a classroom blog. I didn't feel there was much potential for success. However, I somewhat enjoyed the blog. I feel I gained a better understanding of the story based on the various topic areas we were allowed to post on.
ReplyDeleteI actually like the blogging, I think it's a really good way for us to all communicate, especially since we're not all in the same class. It's good to hear so often what other people are thinking, it seems to help us all understand the book or look at it differently.
ReplyDeleteAt first I was completely turned off by the idea of having to blog and the fact that others could read what I was writing. After a few blogs though I started to enjoy it. It's easy, and since many of us are hanging around the computer anyways it's easy to go on and do a quick post. I suppose I often forgot to post a blog for my section which is a pain. Because if I forget to blog and last minute need to, if I'm not around a computer then I'm out of luck. I liked having to read others opinions and posts. I could relate a lot to what others were saying and gathered new opinions on the book. I like how the this blog was structured into sections.
ReplyDeleteits alright better then writing on paper or something like that its a good way to express your feelings and a good way to write how you truely feel.
ReplyDeleteI think that blogging gave everyone a better understanding because everyone was able to see many different views on the same topic. I also think that the blogging was good because it kept me on task. With the small due dates for each blog i new that i had to keep consistantly reading the novel and blogging in order to meet the due dates.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed this blogging idea, and this idea is also proved that the students not only do their homework in papper ,but also can do it in Internet. All the students can also have a discuss about the work whatever they are doing, and the students can even have more thoughts with their discusses. All I want to say is, this is really good idea.
ReplyDeleteWell this was obviously a completely different way to learn and to carry out an assignment. But I had some problems with it and saw some ironic situations in class. Not to say there wasn’t some good parts to it as well. The variety of sections you were assigned to blog was interesting and kept my mind from completely wondering off and not blogging. But I have to mention that when I was assigned a particular part for a certain section that I was only focused on that topic when I was reading, plus one more because of the fact two postings were needed in two different sections. Anyways, instead of trying to analyze the theme or consider how specific characters are affecting Holden’s life, I was only concerned with the setting and the plot. I know I am not alone with this idea and I strongly believe that students should be concentrating on all the essentials that are the key to writing and reading a great book. Also, what if I read 4 chapters and I am concentrating on the plot because that’s the element I’m required to blog about, but, the chapters hold important information about the theme of the book. However, I probably won’t recognize the information as well as I should because my mind is elsewhere. I will definitely give credit where credit is due and give a golden star to the organization of the website. The blog was painless and tranquil to use, especially trying to find archived sections to go back and blog about or even to use for reference. Due to the organization it’s obvious that the website was easier to use than an easy button. Ms. Beebe, you told my class that blogging was supposed to create discussion and debate among students. In some cases I thought it was accomplished because there were occasions that two different classmates would feed off of each others ideas and opinions. However, and this is an important however, I sat in a class reading while everyone else is blogging and all I heard were the keyboards! So much for learning how to discuss, no one was talking to each other at all. Okay sure, everyone was talking over the computer but is that the skill you were really looking for? In the real world, you can’t blog a job interview it’s something a person has to accomplish face to face not computer to computer. Ms Beebe you told me personally we are blogging because you didn’t believe we could have a good enough discussion in class and your evidence was our poor banter during the crucible. But that is simply because it wasn’t worth marks. Why would I answer a question about a book when it’s not going to further my grade. Although, when you make an assignment about creating debate and sharing ideas and it’s for marks then you get an enormous amount of responses. Maybe, if we were to have a half of class to write down what we wanted to say and the other half have the class discuss everything they had to say. Or have those groups converse their particular subject for a certain amount of time then bring everyone together to talk about the book in general. Everyone gets marked on how the take part in on the conversations. That’s my point of view because if we were allowed on facebook, the students could probably learn the same social skills doing that as the blogging.
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