Recently, I have been looking into how to use blogs in my classroom. Through my master’s class at Walden University I have been introduced to several great resources to help get those creative juices flowing. At first, it sounds great to just jump into the computer lab and have students start blogging. However, Kathy Martin (Laureate Education, Inc., 2010), makes an excellent case for scaffolding the blogging process before jumping directly into the collaborative process. She discusses how students may seem familiar with “collaboration” through sites like Facebook, but how that is more of a journaling process. It takes practice to get students to realize the difference between “OMG ur post wz awesum,” and the formal language we expect in a classroom setting.
Taking this into consideration I believe blogging would be a great platform for a jigsaw activity. In my high school biology classroom, especially my honors group, I try to maintain relevance by using current articles and research related to the content we are covering. In a traditional jigsaw, students are placed in groups of usually four to six students. From here they break up into assigned groups to read and discuss a specific article, topic, or research project. After mastering understanding they return to their original group to summarize, respond, and teach what they have learned. Each student becomes a key piece of the puzzle. In theory jigsaw sounds great, however factors such as time, shyness, and lack of discussion are always an issue in getting the most out of the activity.
I believe that using blogs would be a great way to overcome many of the issues associated with jigsaws and help take students to a higher level of learning. You could set up the activity in the same manner as before, except it would be easier to do since you can simply link the resources rather than print copies. A blog group could be set up specifically for this assignment, or student blogs previously set up could be used. If the latter is the case students would need the names and links of the individuals in the group. It would work best to require an initial post to establish understanding of the content we are learning, for example natural selection. From here students would decide who is going to take on each piece and work individually read and research accordingly. Their second post would include a summary of their research and how it applies to the content we are covering.
Already, students will have breached many of the problems associated with standard peer-to-peer interaction. As an example, Richardson (2010) discusses how: “A blog gives them the opportunity to share in writing the ideas they may be too shy to speak” (p. 27). Students will also be able to re-read a summary if clarification is needed. However, the real power of using a blog comes in with the responses to these initial posts. Students will be asked to respond to their group member’s posts, adding in their thoughts about how that fits (or does not) to what we are studying. They will also be asked to make connections between what they studied and what their group members studied. Blogging will not only help them get over certain social obstacles, but allow for deeper connections and understanding in a way that would be difficult to reproduce offline. Finally, there is the hope of outside input. Even though students are working in set groups, their thoughts and summaries are online for anyone else to read and respond to.
I look forward to further thoughts, ideas, and questions.
Resources:
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2010). Blogging in the classroom [DVD]. Understanding the impact of technology on education, work, and society. Baltimore, MD: Author.
Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
