{"id":1198,"date":"2011-12-18T21:26:32","date_gmt":"2011-12-19T05:26:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/?p=1198"},"modified":"2011-12-18T21:38:01","modified_gmt":"2011-12-19T05:38:01","slug":"students-consider-the-future-of-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/archives\/1198","title":{"rendered":"Students Consider the Future of Education"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0;float:none;height:30px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/archives\/1198\" send=\"false\" layout=\"standard\" width=\"450\" show_faces=\"false\" font=\"arial\" action=\"recommend\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div><p>One of the more useful educational tools on the Web, especially for teachers of language arts, is the blog. As a platform for authentic communication, the blog offers students a relatively simple and convenient way to express their thoughts, archive those thoughts for the future, and, if desired, converse with others over issues that matter to them.<\/p>\n<p>Though <a href=\"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/archives\/1189\" target=\"_blank\">access to computers is difficult<\/a> in my school, I&#8217;ve been able to reserve the library&#8217;s computers for my Communications 11 class.\u00a0I asked my students to create a personal blog using the free services from\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/edublogs.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Edublog<\/a> or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\" target=\"_blank\">Blogger<\/a>, and we talked about Internet safety rules regarding names and comments. (Naturally, many students chose to use their full names and allow comments!)<\/p>\n<p>For their first entry, I asked my students to think about what kind of changes to public education they&#8217;d like to see. Students typed out their responses and they peer edited each others&#8217; work. I occasionally helped with this editing process, but I wanted them to take on most of the responsibility for this activity.<\/p>\n<p>The students in this class are reluctant readers and writers, and not a single one has ever created a blog. Nevertheless, they all took to the assignment with gusto, and created their blogs and first entry with remarkable enthusiasm.<\/p>\n<p>The following are a few representative entries, representing a range of students in terms of \u00a0interests, backgrounds and technical ability:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/simranneeta.blogspot.com\/2011\/12\/paragraph-for-future-school.html\" target=\"_blank\">Simi B.<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/alexsssschool.blogspot.com\/2011\/12\/changes-to-school.html\" target=\"_blank\">Alex C.<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/devonsimmons.edublogs.org\/2011\/12\/12\/changes-to-the-school-system\/\" target=\"_blank\">Devon S.<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/emilyvd.blogspot.com\/2011\/12\/what-changes-should-occur-to-public.html\" target=\"_blank\">Emily V.<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/rooney06.edublogs.org\/2011\/12\/12\/what-changes-should-occur-to-public-education-in-the-near-future\/\" target=\"_blank\">Haotian Y.<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the more useful educational tools on the Web, especially for teachers of language arts, is the blog. As a platform for authentic communication, the blog offers students a relatively simple and convenient way to express their thoughts, archive those thoughts for the future, and, if desired, converse with others over issues that matter [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,10,19],"tags":[111,22,50],"class_list":["post-1198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-experiences","category-technology","tag-blog","tag-education-2","tag-technology-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1198"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1198\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1200,"href":"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1198\/revisions\/1200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}