A Window into the World: Blogging in the Classroom

On Friday October 21, 2011, I attended a professional development session put on by Manitoba Association of Multiage Educators (MAME) called A Window into the World: Blogging in the Classroom. It was facilitated by Erin Malkoske and Leslie Dent Scarcello. Erin is a Grade 1/2 teacher and Lesilie teaches Grade 5. It was very apparent that Erin and Leslie integrate technology into their teaching and learning environment in ways that are relevant, useful and productive to their students and families. With their hands-on workshop and sharing of information I am seeing the benefits of technology in the classroom with greater clarity than I have done before.

Carol Dweck researches and writes about two kinds of mindsets: fixed and growth. We need to think about the implications of our own mindset on who, where, what and how we teach. We also need to think about how we are communicating our mindset to our students. I want my students to be really clear on the fact that I have a growth mindset. More importantly, I want them to have a growth mindset too. So today I tried some new things, and I learned how to add pages to my blog, some new gadgets and saw some samples of other blogs I might want to borrow some ideas from in the future. My blog is definitely simple and at a beginner's level, but it's a start.

While a colleague and I were talking about the importance of journaling this way for students and ourselves, it made me think about a passage from the book Leading The Way to Making Classroom Assessment Work by Anne Davies that says... "When we involve students in communicating about their learning, we are inviting them and their parents to have thoughtful conversations with us and with each other about learning."
Through practice, play and conversations with students and their families I am learning that technology can unleash a new level of creative thought. As I continue to invest the time and effort into blogging, I trust that this virtual workspace will be a great tool for having conversations about learning and is a terrific way to demonstrate evidence of deep learning in action.