Reflection
While reflecting on classroom experiences throughout the year and trying to come up with a title for my project, the comment, "Check out my post!" echoed in my head. This comment and other variations of it were often pronounced as we used Edmodo and Kidblog. Students demonstrated enthusiasm and engagement as they composed and posted their thoughts and encouraged others to read their posts.
My goal of creating a community of readers was realized to a certain extent as several of my students who are avid readers used the independent reading blog to solicit suggestions for independent reading, make suggestions to classmates, and thank classmates for recommending good books. However, maintaining independent reading blogs didn't seem to have an impact on encouraging the students who do not read outside of school to read more. I plan to continue using Kidblog for independent reading blogs in the future. My goals are to identify ways to motivate my non-readers to read and blog and move all students beyond the basic plot summary or book review post and toward literary analysis.
Using Edmodo for literature circle discussions turned out to be a valuable way for me to assess how well students understood and could apply the unit themes to their reading. I was also able to monitor the reading comprehension of some of my lower-level readers more easily because I could read their posts and follow their processing of the reading and identify points of confusion that I needed to address when meeting with their groups. When asked, the students seemed to prefer this form of discussion. Many stated that it was better to communicate this way because every one stayed on task and participated. Several students who rarely voluntarily speak in whole-class or small group discussions posted some of the more insightful and lengthy posts that their other classmates took note of and commented about this. In the future I see the necessity of my role as a discussion facilitator diminishing as I introduce more strategies for student-led discourse.
While online class discussion does have several instructional benefits, it isn't a replacement for oral discussion. This year it was a challenge to find a balance of time for oral class discussions and online discussions. Ideally, in the future I would like to have students' online literary discussions conducted primarily outside of the classroom as means to continue class discussions. This way we would be able to focus more time in class on developing oral communication skills. I found that this wasn't a possibility for this year because of inconsistent access to the Internet outside of school and low attendance after school on the three days a week that I stay for tutoring and computer time.
My goal of creating a community of readers was realized to a certain extent as several of my students who are avid readers used the independent reading blog to solicit suggestions for independent reading, make suggestions to classmates, and thank classmates for recommending good books. However, maintaining independent reading blogs didn't seem to have an impact on encouraging the students who do not read outside of school to read more. I plan to continue using Kidblog for independent reading blogs in the future. My goals are to identify ways to motivate my non-readers to read and blog and move all students beyond the basic plot summary or book review post and toward literary analysis.
Using Edmodo for literature circle discussions turned out to be a valuable way for me to assess how well students understood and could apply the unit themes to their reading. I was also able to monitor the reading comprehension of some of my lower-level readers more easily because I could read their posts and follow their processing of the reading and identify points of confusion that I needed to address when meeting with their groups. When asked, the students seemed to prefer this form of discussion. Many stated that it was better to communicate this way because every one stayed on task and participated. Several students who rarely voluntarily speak in whole-class or small group discussions posted some of the more insightful and lengthy posts that their other classmates took note of and commented about this. In the future I see the necessity of my role as a discussion facilitator diminishing as I introduce more strategies for student-led discourse.
While online class discussion does have several instructional benefits, it isn't a replacement for oral discussion. This year it was a challenge to find a balance of time for oral class discussions and online discussions. Ideally, in the future I would like to have students' online literary discussions conducted primarily outside of the classroom as means to continue class discussions. This way we would be able to focus more time in class on developing oral communication skills. I found that this wasn't a possibility for this year because of inconsistent access to the Internet outside of school and low attendance after school on the three days a week that I stay for tutoring and computer time.