What's in the News?

Article: The Summer Travel Blog: A 2.0 Travelogue to Bridge Summer “Down Time”
By Johanna Riddle
Available at: http://www.electronic-school.com/0997f3.html

Summary: This article discussed a media specialist’s experience winning a Fulbright-Hays Scholarship and getting the chance to travel to China during the summer break. Johanna Riddle described her experience creating a blog that was visited by about 50% of the student body while she was traveling and how she connected the blog to further learning in the classroom. After she returned from China, she used a blog to create a consortium that allowed students to post their work online as well as ask and answer questions and make comments. The third grade students had different assignments in reading, writing, map skills, and technology which were tied to part of the teacher’s trip as well as a culminating project using Adobe Photoshop. As of January, the blog site is still being utilized and continues to benefit the students’ learning.

Response: I thought the article had a lot of interesting facts and points. I think that Johanna was using her technology and multimedia knowledge in the best of ways to portray her experience not just to a small amount of students but to an entire community. I would be interested to see the blog site that the students came up with during the summer as well as what they created in the classroom activities which were associated with the curriculum. Johanna specifically mentioned that the students used Adobe Photoshop to create a layered photo project that resulted in the students’ demonstration of mastery in the areas they were studying (research, writing and technology). The students used the teacher’s photos, their own photos, pictures they found during their research as well as timelines and excerpts of their writing to capture the full capabilities of the students.

My View: I was very intrigued by the author’s experience. I had heard of scholarships and programs which allowed teachers to go to different countries for cultural experiences for a number of reasons. I knew that these recipients usually had to relate it to their general teaching practices in some way. Johanna wasn’t the only one using a blog to keep everyone else updated. It was interesting to see what different multimedia outlets there are for entering pictures, videos, sound clips and other items on a blog website. I think that the aspect I was most interested in was the Adobe Photoshop project. I have problems downloading pictures onto my computer that are small enough to post on a website or upload as a picture as well as putting into a document without overloading the size of the file. Using technology and multimedia applications in that way with third graders really makes me want to learn to use the programs and have such detailed and interesting activities associated with a blog.

Questions: What happens when the next group of third graders comes along? They aren’t able to follow the teacher throughout their travels. Are they able to follow with similar activities in subsequent years? Was any data collected on student feedback? (To determine if any tweeking needed work, if they enjoyed it, anything that might help to reuse the situation for subsequent years.) What are some other ways to travel and use blogs in classroom settings without having to travel to China?