Because I teach 6th grade Social Studies in a middle school setting, I think I could find myriad fun and engaging ways to apply blogs to my instruction. One of my favorite sub topics in the 6th grade “World Cultures” curriculum is US History. We have many opportunities throughout the year to talk about different conceptual aspects of US History, including geography, culture, and economics. At my campus specifically, we participate in a full six week end-of-year unit that focuses just on US History in a push to prep our kids early for the 8th grade STAAR History exam.
One idea I came up with is a series of blog-based “diary entries” where students are asked to relay important events of the American Revolution through the eyes of different first-hand witnesses. Students would be assigned “characters” like Benjamin Franklin as ambassador to France, a patriot soldier, a proclamation line farmer, etc.
Students would be required to support their character’s perspective by the use of primary documents and other sources of eyewitness information. In 6th grade, students are expected to learn the difference between primary and secondary sources of information and I think this would be a great way for them to really see that difference highlighted for them.
In terms of content, students would build their blogs with attention to the analysis, evaluation and application levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. The assignment would also necessarily require them to synthesize information. They would need to think critically about what documents to use in supporting their perspectives. In doing this and other in-unit assessments, the students could demonstrate skills covered by the state of Texas “Social Studies skills” 6th grade TEKS (6.21-23.)
From the standpoint of pedagogy, the US History blog unit would draw from the constructivist idea that students should build knowledge for themselves through discovery. My role as an instructor in this scenario would be more as a facilitator, rather than a delivery person. I could guide students to fulfill the objectives of the unit on their own. Additionally, I could use my own understanding of each student’s prior knowledge to assign them a “character” that would give them the greatest potential for engagement and real learning.
The blog technology would offer several affordances. But before I let the kids loose on the technology, I think it would be a great idea to model these affordances by creating an example blog of my own. The kids would then be able to see examples of what they could do with a blog. Blogs are especially versatile because you can insert all kinds of relevant media including music, spoken word, video and even GIFs or funny memes. I think the sheer variety of compatible media would support the constructivist angle of this learning unit. Kids would be inspired to show their understanding of concepts in new and cool ways.
Of course, blogs can be used for a variety of classroom tasks. Collaboration would be easy through the comment sections. Blogs also allow us instructors to keep tabs on our kids’ progress and understanding.
Some obstacles with this tech, or any tech, is the time constraints put on each unit. It seems like we are always faced with cramming a lot of information into a small amount of instructional time. It would likely take several years of “tinkering” with this unit proposal to iron out major issues.
