Generative Technology and the Classroom

Blogs would have a significant impact on my future teaching. Students would enjoy the ability to communicate their ideas with a larger audience and get feedback. Since there are many different free blog options to choose from, I could allow students flexibility to choose the format that worked best for him or her. Additionally, I could more easily grade blog assignments because I could set them up in aggregates, so that my computer would notify me of new entries. This would benefit students because they could get feedback from me more quickly. The blog would also allow for creativity. Students could write a journal from the perspective of a character or answer creative questions that I posted for them on a class blog.

I would harness the advantages of this technology by encouraging students to read each other's blogs. Rather than having peer editing, where students read each others' handwritten work, I would have blog editing, where students read each others' blog postings. I would also take time to review my students' entries and provide them feedback in a timely manner. Hopefully, this quick feedback would encourage students to post on their blog.

To encourage creativity, I could really have some fun. I would assign the students a journal entry much like the journal entries in the Historical Diary on Immigration, except instead of being in the voice of an immigrant, I would require students to write blog entries in the voices of various characters from novels we are reading. In addition, I would have a class blog, and provide students with a password so that they could answer prompts much like The Secret Life of the Bees Blog, where students answer a variety of questions. I might even have students post artistic representations of aspects of the book, similar to those that the teacher on that site posted. One other great opportunity would be to communicate with others about novels like Patrick Henry High School. For example, if we were reading Pride and Prejudice, we could contact the Jane Austen Center in Bath, England and ask experts at the Center to respond to our blog questions.