Status Report of the Virtual Campus: Blogs

During the second part of the meeting, the teachers who used blogs as a working tool in the classrooms talked about the experience, how students welcomed blogs and how these activities contributed to the learning process. We will now present some of their observations:

“Working with blogs brought new issues to the classroom (such as intertextuality), which are not included in the curriculum of the subject”. Débora Wainschenker talked about the beginning of the Language 1º E blog: (the first blog they had, after sharing the 2º G blog). She stood out an activity they did on The Wizard of Oz: they worked with the images of the play, which led to a discussion of more complex issues. Débora presented her work with blogs at a congress on the Promotion of Reading and Writing, which was carried out in La Habana, Cuba, and was very welcomed.

“With the blog we were able to show what the United Nations Model is about”. Daniel Plotinsky presented the UN Model blog and mentioned that - once it was adopted by teachers and students- the access to the materials and their consultation improved significantly through the comment area. The first live broadcast was presented by this blog from Almagro campus, “so we were able to show parents and other people what the Model is about”, he said.

“Blogs enabled us to generate another kind of approach with contents”. Jimena Castellión went through her work with blogs, from We are reading Matilda to Our personal profiles, and Frankenstien is visiting us. Jimena contrasted the first blog, where she posted a series of resources about the play, and the last ones, where students posted their own texts and commented on other classmates’ posts.

“We are looking for new ways to organize information, to prevent the blog from becoming a modern parchment”. Analía Fukelman presented the blog Navegate with Sciences, of the Natural Sciences Department, which she described as a reservoir of different resources of interest to students: guides, sites and complementary materials (many of the audio-visual). Analía also said that the News of the World… blog emerged from the previous blog, and stood out the way in which information is organized at the blog.

“The students themselves write the chronicle of each class, and it remains in the blog”. Javier Jamui referred to the use of the blog as a students’ production context, by considering his experience at the blog de Naturales de 2º I, where an abstract of the contents seen in class is posted. “In this way, I know that at least two students are paying attention”, added Javier as a joke to stand out the enthusiasm that this activity generates in students.

At the presentation, there were also other important experiences, such as the blogs of the proyectos Finales de Electrónica CANSat, where students documented their research work; el blog de ExpoConstrucciones, where the activities carried out at the exhibition were registered; and the blog de la radio, where the podcasts produced by the students along the year were published.

We invite you to visit these blogs and others at the Virtual Campus Weblogs Net: http://redblogs.ort.edu.ar/