Blogging has hit the classroom. Teacher Stacey O’Donnell has discovered a way to get students writing at North Salem High School… Blogs.
Yes, blogs are being used in the classroom, and achieving what no-one has been able to do effectively before… they are getting their student’s writing interactively, with 95% of assignments being completed.
By DIANA BELLETTIERI
THE JOURNAL NEWS
Since English teacher Stacey O’Donnell embraced blogging as a teaching tool, the days of ducked assignments and terse essays are long gone. She can’t get her students to stop writing.
“If there were only questions and a notebook, they’d say, ‘I did it. It’s done. That’s it,’ ” said O’Donnell, 32. “But this keeps raising the bar.”
English teachers at North Salem High School were the first to experiment with blogs, the wildly popular and increasingly influential Web logs that are the latest Internet contribution to personal and public communication. They made entries part of graded class work and homework.
It worked so well, they talked it up to their colleagues.
From English, the program spread to the science department. Now the middle school is exploring the blogging possibilities.
“The goal is to expand education beyond the classroom,” said English Department Chairman Nick Kowgios. “It’s very powerful, especially for kids who don’t speak much in class. This gives them a voice.”
From political commentary to personal diaries, blogs have given a voice to individuals across the globe. According to a study released earlier this month by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, more than 8 million Americans have their own blogs.
Yet there is a technology gap between the clued-in and the clueless: 27 percent of Internet users surveyed said they read blogs, and 12 percent have posted comments to them; but 62 percent of Americans said they don’t know how to define the term “blog.”
The rapid proliferation of blogging has transformed the way information is disseminated. It was bloggers, for instance, who first questioned the authenticity of documents used in news anchor Dan Rather’s “60 Minutes” segment questioning President Bush’s Vietnam-era National Guard service. An independent panel concluded last week that CBS should not have aired the segment, and four high-ranking journalists were fired as a result.
Blogs were also influential in the South Asian tsunami coverage and relief effort. Bloggers were the first to post descriptions of the destruction. They reached out to lost family members and friends, and they posted links to charities as well.
Since the release of free blog-publishing tools, beginning in 1999, typical bloggers have also included teens using the forum to complain about homework and gossip about relationships.
In the classroom, blogs are perfect for everything from sharing poetry to debating global warming, North Salem High School teachers said.
Students are required to write 100-word blog entries about two days a week. Teachers said limiting the frequency of the assignments ensures that students who don’t own computers have time to do the assignment in school.
During a 10th-grade English honors class, 15-year-old Allison Glasgow and her peers sat in front of a large screen that displayed their class blog. After a debate about whether John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath” character Jim Casy symbolizes Jesus Christ, Glasgow said blogs have helped her to connect with the material.
“It’s better because you see what everyone else is thinking and you can expand on their ideas,” said Glasgow, of North Salem. “It forces us to think more.”
Teachers said blogs are a natural fit for English classes because the subject encourages personal reflection and interpretation. Yet science, which is typically more straightforward and factual, is also conducive to blogging.
Scott Lenhart, who teaches Regents physics, began using blogs in October. He said 95 percent of students complete blog assignments, which is a 15 percent increase from textbook assignments. Blogging subjects include cloning, Arctic drilling and the decline of coral reefs.
“At first (students) were like, ‘We’re doing blogs in science?’ And I was like, ‘We’re doing this in science?’ ” said Lenhart. “I really struggled to come up with subjects to do with blogs. You just can’t debate Newton’s Second Law.”
Sixteen-year-old Stephen Renick of North Salem admitted he was skeptical about using blogs in science. But he said blogging has helped him to understand some controversial issues that will be debated throughout his lifetime.
“Instead of just factual info, we’re being forced to think outside the box,” he said. “It’s a lot more fun than textbook work.”
Lauren Carminucci, a North Salem English teacher using blogs, said the sites are a natural fit for students raised on the computer.
“They don’t realize they’re actually doing homework,” she said. “They feel like they’re getting away with something.”
Send e-mail to Diana Bellettieri