Annual Conference

Overcoming the Fear of Blogs: Teaching Critical Skills, Learning About Your Learners

Educators who attended "Blogs: How Do They Fit Into Teaching?" had numerous questions for presenter Erica Brownstein about the risks of using blogs in the classroom, but she pointed out that "students are blogging anyway," and challenged the attendees: "What if you took that energy and brought it to your classroom?" Brownstein's copresenter, Lindsay Dexter, noted that blogs allow you to "learn something about your learners" that you might not through other tools and techniques.

As reported in the Washington Post after Brownstein's session, blogs are currently a popular topic in education, and her crowded and lively session showed educators' continuing interest. Along with two of her graduate students, Anne Callahan and Lindsay Dexter, Brownstein walked the attendees through all of the steps necessary to create and use blogs in the classroom, showing several blogs that are currently being used for instruction as examples.

Secure, Powerful, and Free Tools
As she did, Brownstein showed how educators can secure blogs to minimize risks and protect students. For example, Blogger, a free, Web-based tool, allows the blog administrator to limit access to authorized users, who are the only people allowed to contribute posts or comments to the blog.

In addition to their questions about security, attendees wanted to know how blogs can be used to support learning and teaching. To answer these questions, the presenters showed attendees blogs that are in use by teachers, explaining how and why they worked. Brownstein noted that all of the example blogs had been started and completed within the last school year, demonstrating how easy it is to create and develop a useful and robust blog.

How each blog supports learning depends on what the function of each is. Brownstein listed the three types of educational blogs:

• learning
• interacting
• reflecting

She encouraged attendees to not try to achieve too much each blog. Brownstein has found that a blog project can only support one of these objectives, although each could support subobjectives. However, all the types of blogs share common, powerful benefits, according to the presenters.

Building Community, Developing Critical Readers
Brownstein observed that "A blog is about the whole community and self-expression. It means embracing the world community." Dexter observed that some teachers are using blogs to connect younger and older students in "a buddy system through the blog," similar to reading buddy systems.

With guidance from their teachers, many students critique their peers' writing "which makes them critical readers," said Brownstein. Dexter also noted that in some schools, teachers in higher grades were reading the blogs of students in lower grades, and commenting on them. This has two benefits:

• affirming the students' connection to the whole school community
• providing teachers with advance information about upcoming students

Brownstein has observed that, in this supportive environment, "students take writing risks that they normally wouldn't take," extending their abilities as writers and critical thinkers. While she finds the writing skills practice that blogs provide important, as a science teacher, Brownstein tries to focus on the content, looking to see how students are interacting and making connections, leading to deeper understanding.

"You Don't Have To Be the Expert in the Room"
As they described the many potential benefits of blogs in the classroom, the presenters provided the Web addresses of many resources for teachers who want to explore this new technology. Brownstein reminded those attendees who were still unsure about how to use or secure blogs that often their best resource for more information is their students.

She reminded attendees, "You don't have to be the expert in the room." But, she continued, in light of the continued increase in cyberbullying, even for those who don't use blogs in their classrooms, "You must know about blogging. You must find out if your students are blogging." For those who suggested that perhaps it is better to keep blogs out of the classroom, Brownstein reminded them of the power of their positions, "The power is in your modeling for [your students]. . . . If they don't see the model, they don't know how to blog responsibly."

For those who still expressed trepidation, Brownstein encouraged them, "As a teacher, you must be a risk taker. The benefits outweigh the fear."

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Are you thinking about using blogs in your classroom, or are you already a seasoned blogger or blog-facilitator? Share your questions or experience.

Get more information about Learning in the Digital Age.

Using Jazz to Lead Students into New Frontiers of Understanding

Speaking in Chicago, home to jazz clubs that are nearly 100 years old, Robert Horowitz observed that, in the United States, "desegregation started in jazz bands before it moved into the military and professional sports" and social institutions. Horowitz, along with Sara Cunningham, debuted a new Web site that uses jazz to teach about a wide range of subjects during a session entitled "Jazz: An American Story."

The site, developed by the National Endowment for the Arts, features lesson plans that include

• short films created for the site
• essays with embedded audio samples
• profiles of major artists
• photo galleries
• supplemental audio samples
• assessments

These interactive tools illustrate subjects in ways that engage all students and educate the whole child by showing how the progression of jazz styles reflects social movements. One lesson explains, for example, that while Harlem was the "indisputable capital of bebop," most of the musicians who developed that style there were African Americans who had moved to New York City from the South and Southwest, drawn by the burgeoning Harlem Renaissance.

To allow teachers to align the lessons with their curriculum, the teacher version of each lesson lists objectives and relevant standards, as well as an assessment to ensure that students meet their learning goals.

In addition, every lesson includes student activities ranging from discussion questions to independent research. For example, by comparing, trumpet solos across the history of jazz, students can hear how music reflects the tenor of the times in which it was created. They can also read literature written at the time, allowing them to use their literacy and critical reasoning skills. These activities engage the whole child in constructing relationships and creating deeper understanding.

Horowitz explained that understanding the evolution of jazz and seeing how it affects and is related to society can help students better understand social and political movements and events, such John F. Kennedy's "New Frontier" address:

But I tell you the New Frontier is here, whether we seek it or not. Beyond that frontier are the uncharted areas of science and space, unsolved problems of peace and war, unconquered pockets of ignorance and prejudice, unanswered questions of poverty and surplus.

By making it possible for students to comprehend the themes of Kennedy's address, as well as learn about and develop deeper understandings across the curriculum, jazz continues to open doors to new frontiers for students.

Levine Urges Educators to Tap into Brain Power

Dr. Mel Levine, Saturday morning's General Session speaker, confirmed what educators have long understood: Brains don't develop at the same rate in every kid, and teachers had better pay attention lest they lose students who are perfectly capable of learning.

The rapid and dramatic development that happens from age 11 through young adulthood makes learning challenging, but it also makes learning happen. Levine says brain research supports education strategies that:

Avoid labels. Levine said, "The trouble with labels is that they are reductionist--they seek to name a condition and not address it. They are essentially pessimistic. The vast majority of kids who are labeled as having reading comprehension problems are probably having active working memory problems. They need to find ways to hold short-term memory in their minds. Enough with labels."

Use the most appropriate assessments. Timed tests don't have much of a place in Levine's world, nor does memorization. "It's much better to understand where you can go on the rivers of Africa rather than being able to name all the rivers of Africa," Levine said. "Better still is explaining the contributions of Africa's rivers to the people who live there."

Recognize developmental readiness. Fidgety middle-schoolers and bored high school students are behaving in ways that reflect how their brains are growing. "One of the most important things we can teach kids to do is work slowly," Levine said. "As the pre-frontal cortex develops, children are dealing with problems of impulsivity and learning not to jump to the first conclusion they draw or decision they make. What's that mean? To me it means no more timed tests. It's much better to say, 'Take as long as you need, but you can only use two pages' than it is to say 'You have an hour to tell us as much as you can.'"

Builds on strengths. Levine urged educators to match instruction not only to developmental readiness, but also to what students can actually do with their learning. "Imagine hiring an adult. Would you ask them 'How's your rote memory?' Of course not," he said. "That's not generally an important skill. Actually, it's almost irrelevant."

Getting kids to tap into that relevant learning is what education is about. Levine said young brains have a hard time filtering what's important to know.

"Problems with significance detection are probably the most common issue among high school kids," noted Levine. "They're trying to take it all in, and that is difficult to do. Many high school kids just cannot separate what's important from what's not."

He recalled a young Stanford math professor who had a firm grasp of the problem. "I asked him what it was like to teach calculus to college freshmen," Levine recounted. "He said, 'Well, you know how it is. Some of them just get it, and the others you have to teach.'"

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• Explore ASCD's newest video-based staff development program, Teaching the Adolescent Brain.
• Read a chapter from the second edition of Eric Jensen's Teaching with the Brain in Mind.

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Do you have experiences with students developing at different rates? What strategies have been most successful? Share with us using the "Comments" link below.

Photo Credit: Mark Regan

E-Communication: Boosting Parental Involvement

Getting parents involved in their kids' educations is considered one of the toughest -- and potentially most rewarding -- challenges in education today. A recent MetLife teacher survey found that new teachers view engaging their students' parents as the single most difficult aspect of the job.

Yet there is ample evidence that parental-involvement efforts pay off handsomely, in more and better student learning, higher test scores, better attendance, and fewer behavioral problems. How to achieve such worthy results?

The March edition of Edutopia, the magazine of the George Lucas Educational Foundation, argues that technology offers one of the best routes toward improving communication between schools, teachers, and parents. Electronic mail and Web pages provide a convenient way for parents and teachers to stay in touch, update each other on student progress, and ask and answer questions about what's going on in class and at home. Edutopia says these strategies can facilitate electronic communication.

• Assign an e-mail address to all faculty and staff. For working parents especially, e-mail may be the most effective way of staying in touch with teachers. Of course, teachers will need regular access to a computer for e-mail to work well.
• Start school and class Web pages. They are great for giving parents and caregivers access to assignments, schedules, and notices. Use them to show off student work too! Keep the pages current and update them often to encourage frequent visits.
• Send electronic newsletters. Cut out the middleman (the student whose backpack may house a semester's worth of school fliers) and send an e-newsletter directly to parents. They combine the best features of both e-mail and Web pages. Be sure to offer paper versions for parents who don't have access to a computer.
• Put student data online. Password-protected information on each child can help parents stay on top of their kids' grades, attendance, even lunch-buying habits. Edutopia notes that access to academic performance information can help parents head off problems before they become crises.
• Consider providing laptops to take home. It's an expensive option, but many schools have found that sending computers home with students fosters learning and makes it easier for parents to keep up with what their kids are doing in class.

What's your experience with using technology to increase parent involvement? Click "comments" below to share your story.