Comments on: On Classroom Blogging 3: Sucking It Dry: Teachers as Vampires

By: Happy Birthday, Beyond School - and Rest in Peace? | Beyond School

Happy Birthday, Beyond School - and Rest in Peace? | Beyond School — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 23:34:16 +0000

[...] – and French Revolution wikis that made my head swim. I wrote about dystopian edu-futures in which teacher-vampires “sucked classroom blogging dry,” turned it into “a new way to turn in the same old homework.” I wrote and I [...]

By: KSTF Blogging Workshop Phase3 « blogging about blogging

KSTF Blogging Workshop Phase3 « blogging about blogging — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 02:27:06 +0000

[...] online communication practices * NEED!!!!!! for teachers to have a new mindset – Check this blog post out for inspiration Others? Come up with your own. One resource that could be used to inspire more [...]

By: An Old Prophecy Confirmed? On the Uses and Abuses of Laptop Learning | Beyond School

Wed, 28 May 2008 19:10:08 +0000

[...] kill the learning that is possible when students have a simple laptop and a blog. This snippet from a post from back then says it all, and my views haven’t changed on this one. (Add “and laptop learning” [...]

By: Clay Burell

Clay Burell — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 17:12:07 +0000

Wow, Elizabeth, you’re deep in the archives!

Your link to NCTE doesn’t work, and I’m curious to read it. Can you fix it?

Thanks

By: Elizabeth Helfant

Elizabeth Helfant — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 16:55:00 +0000

I agree completely. Our kids explain to many of our faculty that they are using blogs wrong. They use them as a forum to have a discussion or as a way to post a traditional essay online and have people more or less peer edit. I’m hoping to change that with a couple of english classes next year. I gave them your blogging set up from a ways back and have them reading a few real blogs now to get a sense of what it really is. The new NCTE proposal is helping me get a little buy in with english teachers http://www.ncte.org/about/gov/129117.htm. Thinking I need to make them blog a little before they start next year. Thanks for making me think!

Elizabeth Helfant’s last blog post..Establishing a Culture of Learning

By: Bill Gaskins

Bill Gaskins — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 00:06:18 +0000

I am afraid many teachers today don't know what the word pedagogy means. I see too many teachers going through the motion and don't have one clue about why they are doing what they do. I agree blogging could turn out just to be one more chore or one more thing a teacher has to check off their list by the end of the year. PS I don''t think many teachers read or write. That has been my experience in the last 20 years and mainly that has been language arts teachers. They have learned the language and they speak and the administrators and curriculum specialist believe them. We in bad times.... Bill Gaskins's last blog post..A Must Read

By: Patrick Higgins

Patrick Higgins — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 17:10:00 +0000

I am digging this line of questioning that you have undertaken. The most dreaded thing to hear from a member of my staff is that comparison of blogging to an existing format; the one I hear often is "threaded discussion" or "discussion board."

A few weeks ago, Will Richardson spoke at a conference I attended and his take has greatly influenced my thinking: get your teachers blogging and let them see the value of it before they bring it to their students.

Some of our favorite bloggers are nothing short of prolific, offering up several posts per day. When teachers see them, that is intimidating. Do we show them those posts because they are worthy? Or do we show them where to look for blogs about what they are passionate about (show them technoriati and Google Blog search)?

My hat is in the ring for letting the teachers play before they thrust it onto the students because if they don't carve out their own use for it, it is most certainly going to become just another way to hand in homework.