Battle of the Blog

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I have to admit that before I began my course, blogging was a something I was interested in learning more about so that I could use it in my class.  When I would explore other blogs I became intimidated by the look of the blog and all the work that seemed to go into creating one.  My teaching partner, Chantelle Davies, used blogs this past year and ensured me that it was not that difficult to create but I still wasn't convinced but promised to try.  After only a few weeks using a blog I find it fairly simple to use and feel confident that I can follow through on one of Chantelle and mine goals:  create a class blog.

Website vs. Blog

The question before us is why a class blog and not a website?   Though both seem to do similar things, I find them quite different.  Both a blog and websites offer information on various topics.  In a website, the information remains static.  It is placed on the site and rarely updated.  This is fine if a teacher plans to create a website for a unit where students can gather information about a topic.  If the teacher's need of the tool is to only share and distribute content then the website is a good tool.  However, if the teacher would like a collaborative and interactive site then a blog the best tool for this application.  The blog allows the teacher to post update and current content and allows others to interact with that content.  It is a way of sharing and building upon content.  So the answer to the question: blog or website really depends on how the tool will be used in the classroom.  

Websites and Blogs both have a use in the class.  Just to create the tool serves no purpose unless children are explicitly taught what each tool is for and explained how to use each as a learning tool.  However, when I think of a website I think of big name sites(PBS Kids, National Geographic Kids, etc.).  I was wondering if anyone has created a class website and share it as an example.

A Shared Collection Using Delicious

My teaching partner, Chantelle Davies and I have created a Delicious account that we are sharing together.  We Both originally had accounts of our own, but thought that it would be beneficial to create one account where we could both save resources for teaching our common subject area and as a place to collect resources for our students to access.

Recently, we have been collecting a variety of video's to aid our grade 5 students in their understanding of our science unit:  Forces Acting on Structures.

You can view what have have in our collection so far here:
Grade 5 Forces/Structures on Delicious

One activity we have planned is related to our look into the power of natural forces.  In an effort to have students use resources to engage their higher order thinking skills we have created a task using Google Docs where they can collaborate with other members in their group on the videos they will watch.  The video's are available through the Delicious link above if you add the tag "natural forces"  to the collection that is already there.  However, we have also added the links to the Google Documents students will be working on.

Here is the Google Docs assignment for our students:  The Power of Natural Forces