Chapter 3

I really enjoyed chapter 3. It had some really great ideas involving blogs, wiki, and collaborative web processors, all which I will talk about in my post. First of all I’d like to point out that I use two of these in my current college classes, using pbworks for wiki and Blogger for a blog. I’d like to first discuss my feelings about blogging. Having a blog in a classroom is a great idea. Students would write in a blog let’s say every week and then write thoughtful comments over 100 words to one student’s work a week. This situation is one that uses the blogs to their maximum use and allows for the students to not only share their work with the world or their peers but allows them to gain responses based on their work that is useful for them to grow as writers. In my college Shakespeare class we use blogs in this method and as well in my Computers in the Classroom class. Actually… I’m using a blog for that exact reason reviewing this book! Amazing right?? So anyways, moving onto wikis, I also use them in my Shakespeare class for group work and one of the greatest uses in this future teacher’s opinion is being able to see who posted what. No more group work with having one person do the work and everybody getting credit. Now a teacher can see who posted what and not give credit to those who are slackers. Not only that but the use to make pages in pages let’s students create wikis with a great amount of information and really allows them to pick something that they want to talk about in a broad subject. For instance if a class was talking about Shakespeare and a student was really interested in one sonnet of his then he could create a page talking about just that sonnet while another student tackles one of his plays. Lastly, collaborative web processions are very similar to wiki, however are good for making a single paper and having students work on it at home. Speaking of home that’s something that is important to mention. Having students work at home on the web allows time for thoughts to develop and writing to improve. I also like how with web word-processors they always keep the old work just in case a person does not like their changes. This is something I use from time to time and really love. Plus, having everything online makes like easier. Overall chapter 3 was a great chapter with a lot of information and ideas that would work great in a classroom and I plan on using things like blogs and wikis in my own one day.

-Jimmy