using blogs in education

The Web 2.0 in the Classroom Blog lists 33 ways on how to use blogs in education. Please select one way or describe a new one which you like best and connect it to any educational theory.

Create a blog where every member of the class posts about a favorite vacation. Embed maps, use Google Earth or even create a “collaborative google map” where everyone “pins” their favorite vacations on one map.

 

This way of using blogs for education is interesting in various ways. First and foremost, this suggestion is not connected to any special subject! This blog can be used as project over a long period connecting ideas and subjects to become a very differntiated work on a special topic. Vacation and the country one is blogging about can be dealed with in subjects like english, a foreign language (maybe the one belonging to that country if possible), history, politics, geographics, sports – rather theroetical though, computer skills, biology… nearly every subject can be linked to this one topic.

Looking at this proposed way of educational blogging, it turns out that nearly every topic can be tought in that way. Just imagine how many opportunities and connections to subjects a topic like ”media” could possibly offer if you just think about in how many ways one can deal with just a newspaper! How is it manufactured? How is it written? Who invented it? Problems? etc…

As another aspect this blogging idea is interesting for it’s way of connecting not only different topics and points of view, but further many possibilities of techincal connections. Besides text elements and the suggested google-maps also videos and pictures can underline the topic of course. The more detailed the topic is treated the further the technical possibilities can reach! An online vocabulary test? A geographical point and click game? A twitter like communication plattform on this special topic? There are no limits!

However, this way of educating connects in a very 2.o-way to educational ideas of eg. Rudolf-Steiner or Maria Montessori. The pupils are given the space they need and the personal freedom to develop their topic and to choose their own way of learning and dealing with it. Also it is possible to give the students the possibility to work whenever they want. In many educational ideas this features are fundamental for improved learning!

Lost

Those first weeks at University will never change.

In the first two semesters I thought stumbling around, not finding the rooms, always being the last to get to know something, searching for online passwords and useful information for the courses are problems that will not occur anymore as soon as you get used to this new place. It’s my sixth semester now and I am just as lost as on the first day.

Of course I found some tricks and clues to find my way and to remember dates, passwords, names of professors and rooms by now. I bought a pretty new invention some time ago, which makes life in university so much easier - they call it calender.

But still, it seems to me the main subject university tries to teach me is how to find my way through the german-burocratic-jungle. I study education, which means I have to attend classes in psychology and sociology aswell plus I decided to take law courses. This means 4 different departements have to handle me, and I did not mention the office for job training yet.

In the days before I had my calendar, there was a slight change that I forgott to pick up one of my credits. No problem, you can still get it later, because they save it for you. You just have to find it. Apparently, there are people teaching at my department, which disappear next year. They are normal persons again, which you have to track down like like Sherlock Holmes.

I’m not complaining about the structures, in fact it often seems to me I am the only clueless among a very organized crowd, but I can tell as further as you go deep and ask the other students you get a big variety of different answers to the same questions and a little problem with reliability.

If only there was an office which would give me the answer to all of my questions! At least the answer on where to go, when to go there, who to speak to when I am there and what to ask for when i found the person i should speak to, it would make my studies a lot easier.

Or maybe more boring?

Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!