Frustration of technology

Technology is supposed to make things easier, faster and more convenient. While it achieves this a lot of the time it also seems to cause me more headaches than anything else in my life at times. My current frustration with technology comes from the fact that I am not sure all the comments I have posted to other people’s Blogs in this class have actually gone through as for some reason I can no longer see them. If you have received a comment from me on one of your blog post and you can see it could you please let me know. Thanks.

How do we use blogs effectively?

After looking at many different blogs used for education I think the key to using them effectively is to think about what you want your students to get out of your class and blog. Is your blog going to be used as a question and answer area, a site where students can go to discuss topics further, or is it going to be a place where kids and parents can go to post their work or look at their kids work? Whatever direction one takes I think that it is important to have an idea of what you hope to accomplish with your blog so that you can set it up so that your target audience will be able to get the most out of it.

how blogs are used

After reading several articles about blogging and education I think that it goes without saying that blogs can be a very strong tool for educators to use. One of the ways that I see blogs being used in education that I really like is their use to keep parents informed and included in their students education. Parent's involvement in a kid's education goes a long way to helping a student become more successful and blogs can allow a parent to know what is going on in a student's classroom.

The RSS feature for blogging could be a great tool for parents to use to easily keep up to date on what is happening on their kid's classroom blog. The RSS feature would allow them to quickly check in and see what their kids or the teacher have posted on the blog.

what teachers make.

My Sister and Mom, both who are teachers, constantly send me links to videos of this guy. I thought this one was great.

Blogging and Education

The article Blogging to Improve Instruction in Differentiated Science Classrooms brings up a couple of good points about some of the ways that blogs can be a beneficial tool for educators.  One of the benefits that is pointed out in the article is that teachers can use blogs to extend the classroom by creating a user friendly environment that can be used in multiple ways to either serve as a tool to help students who may be struggling with a subject and they can also be used to challenge gifted students.  Both of these uses, I think, are great as they use technology to further a student’s learning by using a form of media that students today are comfortable with and familiar with.

Another good point the article brings up is that integrating blogs into a course can be difficult and time consuming and that an educator needs to carefully think about and assess the blog they set up and the content they post on it to make sure that it is relevant and that it is effective at delivering the needed information.

    Blogging to Improve Instruction in Differentiated Science Classrooms

Michaela W. Colombo, Paul D. Colombo

The Phi Delta Kappan
Vol. 89, No. 1 (Sep., 2007), pp. 60-63

Published by: Phi Delta Kappa International

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20442410

In the other article I read, A Framework for Blogging to Promote Higher Order Thinking, the author makes a good case for using blogs to further a student’s educational experience. In the article I really like the points that were made about keeping an open mind about the structure and use of the blogs.  In one of the examples that are sited within the article the author notes how in one circumstance the students shared ideas that helped make and keep the blog interesting and useful for the students. 

     One thing the author brought up that I had never thought of was how blogs would allow more people to see a student’s work.  Normally the only ones to see a student’s work are the teacher and the student themselves, but by having the student’s work posted on a blog people like the students parents, other family members and friends could see what kind of work the student was doing. 

HOT Blogging: A Framework for Blogging to Promote Higher Order Thinking

Lisa Zawilinski

The Reading Teacher
Vol. 62, No. 8 (May, 2009), pp. 650-661

First post and Introduction

Hello all, My name is Russ Allstot and this will be my blog that I will use for cse694.  I hope to use this blog along with other people's blogs to learn about and explore the use of blogs in education. 
A little back ground of who I am,  I grew up in the small town of Ephrata, Washington, which is just about in the center of the state.  I moved from there to Salem, Oregon after I graduated high school. About a year and a half  after I moved to Salem I got married and began working as a certified welder for a company that specializes in stainless steel equipment.  While I continued to work as a welder I also worked on finishing my undergraduate degree; which I did last spring.  I am now working on my master's degree with the goal of becoming a social studies teacher in either the middle or high school level.