Educational Blogging, Book Reviews and QR Codes – Mind Officially blown!

I began this week doing some research and finding some inspiration for my first assignment and eventually got started on the learning Path. But I haven’t got very far because I keep getting side-tracked. This time I’m not blaming my 8 month old baby girl for the distractions (although her current need for constant attention does make study a little bit more than a little bit more challenging than it used to be). Instead, like Donna, who wrote ‘‘Endless resources for integrating ICT’s into classrooms’ I’ve just found so much great ‘stuff’!

For anyone else like me who has, has up until now been kept in the dark, was a little naive or too fearful to even start to consider the possibilities of information technologies in the classroom, prepare for me, a person of whom has had an interest in this area for an entire two weeks now, to blow your mind. I’m going to share with you three of the ‘things’ that have caught my eye and given me a few exciting ideas I’d love to try out in the classroom.

Firstly I found this  YouTube clip on the benefits of educational blogging. After having watched the blog I did a further google on ‘Kathleen Morris’ and found a blog of hers in which shares ideas about ‘blogging’, ‘global collaboration’ and ‘technology integration’. I haven’t yet had the chance to explore too many of these blogs but I’m pretty keen to, as I was pretty well inspired by the YouTube clip, and her blogs are directly related to everything we’re learning about! I was going to use her as my ‘teacher to follow’ for this weeks learning path, but unfortunately I can’t find any recent blogs.

Next, I was inspired by Kids Blog Club, and in particular the blog titled ‘Top 10 Children’s Book review blogs written by kids’. What an excellent way to engage students in literacy!

My Blog QR Code

The third ‘thing’ that has been bought to my attention and truly got me thinking creatively about the use of communication technology at school, was this blog which introduced me to the ‘QR code generator’ . A QR code is “a machine-readable code consisting of an array of black and white squares, typically used for storing URLs or other information for reading by the camera on a smartphone” (google dictionary). I wanted to give it a go so I’ve created a code for my very ownblog!

 

So here’s my radical idea – Engaging students in blogging (reflections for the day or book reviews perhaps?) and providing parents with a unique QR code for their child’s blog so that they can see what their child is doing, and even – dare I say it, be involved with their learning! Leaving comments on their blogs, having a conversation about their blogs, prompting further investigation and so on.

I’ve a few more ideas on how to use blogging and codes in the classroom. What do you think? Is your mind blown? Got your own blogging or QR code ideas? I’d love to hear them.