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You need the tools to learn and teach efficiently through bebo..
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This web page is a link to Bebo Advocates. It establishes how Bebo can be used to create a community of learners.
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About Me
- Bebo Advocates
- I am a third year Uni student, studying a Bachelor of Education in New Zealand. I have an interest in how children are affected by Elearning, components such as Bebo.
Develop the Tools to Teach!
You need the tools to learn and teach efficiently through bebo..
Blogging is developing a world of communication in and out of school environments. Because you are able to access blogging systems whether you are at home or at school it has the potential to be an incredibly useful communication tool. Already this is what we are seeing through bebo. Blogging is beginning to develop in schools, where teachers have known for a long time that students develop better communication skills when they are authentically communicating. A number of educators are helping their students developing their writing skills by having them publish their work as blogs, and then invite comments from people in the outside. In a setting where expression, collaboration, peer support, successful class dynamics, risk taking, sharing and all these recognised characteristics of effective learning are fostered, then personal publishing allows for a revolutionary form of expression and exploration between learners in the same class and the rest of the world. (Smith, 2004).
By using blogging as a means of communication in the classroom it can also be used as an assessment where children are writing for a purpose rather than a passion. However, by its very nature, assigned blogging in schools cannot be blogging. It’s contrived. No matter how much we want to spout off about the wonders of audience and readership, students who are asked to blog are blogging for an audience of one, the teacher. Wrede’s (2004), also comments on his perception of blogging as a means of assessment. "I try my best to pretend it’s not so, and maybe on the elementary level where kids are less focused on playing the grade game this may not be as true. But my students drop blogging like wet cement when the class is over. And it’s because I can’t let them blog in the first place. I can let them write about their passions, but I can’t let them do it passionately due to the inherent censorship that a high school served Weblog carries with it. I can tell them the process will strengthen their writing and their intellect, but I can’t tell them I won’t assess it or else they won’t do it." From my own personal experience this is certainly true. If something is not being assessed, it carries with it a means to not try and not put effort in if it's worthless anyway, even if you know it helps to develop important skills. This can be a negative influence of blogging in the classroom, whether using a system such as bebo or not. Children will not put effort in unless they know it is being assessed, this is more so with older children.
I also found this neat positive quote about blogging by Smith (2004). When I read this I felt it had impact as it states precisely the link between writing and blogging. Something to think about anyway:
"Writing stops, blogging continues. Writing is inside, blogging is outside. Writing is monologue, blogging is conversation. Writing is thesis, blogging is synthesis…"