The Blog as Communication Medium and Collaborative Tool
Educators are using blogs as a means to develop reading, writing, and information and communication technology (ICT) literacies. Blogs also provide a forum for collaboration, information gathering, knowledge building, and publishing.
Below are a few examples of how blogs can be integrated into Jewish educational settings:
- Students in a writing class use blogs as their personal notebooks to share with their teacher for feedback on content and writing skills. The teacher and other students in their writing groups provide comments to help the authors refine, clarify, and strengthen their ideas. The blog preserves a running commentary as the work is created. Students also use images, original videos and podcasts to help tell their stories and to develop visual literacy and communications skills.
- A Jewish history class creates a “you are there” blog in which they write from the perspective of famous personalities or from a specific historical period.
- Learners in a North American class collaborate with Israeli counterparts to compare and contrast their everyday lives. Learners interview their grandparents and other older adults about their experiences growing up Jewish at a particular time or place. These interviews are edited and presented as video clips or audiocasts. Students track their families’ immigration patterns on Google Earth and link it to their blog.
- Jewish family educators post weekly guides related to the Torah portion for family discussions around the dinner table. Families build on this material, sharing their insights and related family customs with each other online.
- Congregational school students use a blog to continue their work on class social action projects even though they are not in the school building.
- A Hebrew language class practices their oral and written skills by producing podcasts and accompanying written materials in Hebrew. They exchange messages with native Hebrew speakers, discuss topics of mutual interest, and share photographs related to these topics through Flickr.
- Administrators post weekly updates about school events. Teachers use the blog to remind students and their families about homework assignments and keep them abreast of class projects.
- A beginning teacher in a day school keeps a blog journal that he shares with his mentor. The teacher journals about challenges he is facing in his new position. Each week he chooses a particular area to develop. His mentor reacts to his postings by providing feedback and perspective based on her own experiences. The teacher posts video clips of this work to his blog and reflects on what he had planned and what occurred in practice. Similarly, his mentor can post video clips that demonstrate alternate methodologies.
Feel free to share your own ideas!