I included two charts I saw from the TECHNORATI report which I thought were relevant to class material. The chart on the left shows how much people are increasingly blogging about issues, crises, and events that take place in the everyday world. Perhaps a great technology project to have ongoing throughout class would be to have every student have their own blog, and then students could blog about current issues and topics that are currently happening in the media. This activity is preparing them to be active participants in their communities, and especially the world. Students can learn to express their voices on key issues to a larger audience--not just me as their teacher.
The second chart on the right hand side, I found appropriate, because it reminded me of issues raised in The World is Flat. Look at how many bloggers there are per language! We are basically tied with Japanese, which shows us how active they are with producing texts via the internet. This graph shows us how essential it is for teachers to get their students to produce authentic material to a wide audience. Blog their opinions; let them share what they have to say with more people (adolescents just want to be heard).
The website also recorded that "Technorati is now tracking over 70 million weblogs, and we're seeing about 120,000 new weblogs being created worldwide each day. That's about 1.4 blogs created every second of every day." Each classroom could continue to add to those statistics.
If we really interest our students, they could continue to blog way after they leave our classroom. Imagine the mark we would leave on them when we can give them this life-long learning tool that they can use and operate daily for the rest of their lives. Doesn't that seem more authentic, more beneficial, more fun than a worksheet?
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