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Saving the World through Educational TechnologyArchive for Constructivist
The Pedagogy Behind Blogs
In my job as a Technology Coordinator I often get asked tough questions. One such question I was recently asked is “Why should I consider using blogs in my class? How are they different from simply writing an assignment up in word processor?” If you are reading this, you’ve likely blogged with your classes already, and you know qualitatively that learning in your class is better because of it. What if you had to answer the question above, however? What would you say?
In his book Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms, Will Richardson has this to say about why Blogging is so effective in classrooms.
“Weblogs are truly a constructivist tool for learning. Because the content that students and teachers create is on the World Wide Web, it is content that becomes a part of the wider body of knowledge that the Internet represents”.
This alone is an incredibly powerful reason to take up blogging with your students if you haven’t already. This argument relies on the potential audience factor that the web offers. It’s one thing to write a report for a teacher, but throw in millions of potential readers and the game changes.
Richardson states further that Blogs are useful for developing the literacy of global collaboration, and that they archive student learning in a neat, chronological, searchable format.
Another factor he mentions that I’ve also heard cited by several great teachers who use weblogs in their classes relates to the democratic nature of blogs in general. Students who may be too shy to speak up in class or who take longer to process their ideas have an opportunity to be heard and share their understanding with the teacher and their peers.
With four sound pedagogical reasons to pursue blogging in your classroom, the ball is in your court.
Conducting a Mini-Debate in Google Docs
As a social studies teacher, I have found the debate format to be a highly successful way of introducing social and ethical issues to my students. Most of the other methods have met with mixed success; class discussions often tend to skim issues due to a few dominant speakers, and position papers leave students with a one-sided exposure. The debate, on the other hand, encourages students to dig a bit deeper, do a bit more research, and both listen to and consider other sides of the argument.
The problem with debates is one of time and logistics. To engage an entire class at once it is usually necessary to have team debates as no class wants to hear the same debate five times over. Groups need time to organize, research, and compile. With so much time required, its not feasible to run a debate very often, and so it becomes something teachers use to introduce debate protocol rather than to engage students in learning concepts. In addition, group work often becomes an individual product rather than a collaborative effort, and thus loses its effectiveness. But what if you could have all of your students simultaneously debating with each other, reduce the cycle to one class period, and be left with a record for assessment and further instruction? That would be a constructivist coup would it not? With a tool like Google Docs you can achieve this.
The way it works is that you set up a document in Google Docs with a prompt and some instructions at the top and a table below for affirmative and negative arguments. You then make several copies of the document and name them 1 – n. You then share the document with 2-6 students (1-3 on a side) and ask them to divide equally among affirmative or negative. Then, they begin writing all at once in the document with arguments that they research or come up with on their own. It works quite well. In a 1:1 environment, each student can add their own points and are not subject to the edits of one dominant group member. They can also have real human conversation while they are doing it.
A sample mini-debate in Google Docs
As the teacher, you can watch the drama unfold by looking at each document from your computer. They are updated real-time so you can see what students have the document open and are adding points. You can even intervene and add comments to the pages to steer students in the right direction. The technology isn’t idiot or vandal proof, however, so it will require a classroom atmosphere of trust and safety for it to work.
That’s not the end of it either. Once the debates have ended, you can then share them with the rest of the class in any number of ways and have students use the data collected to produce some sort of essay or reflective piece that incorporates both sides of the argument. In this way the debate acts as a shared introductory experience necessary for a more critical look at an issue. It’s a lot more fun for the students than an ethics lecture, and they will have more than just a page of notes at the end of it.
To see a sample mini-debate in Google Docs simply click on the snapshot to the right.
