Thursday, September 13, 2012

Use of Blogs in my CTE classes

Use of Blogs in my CTE classes

CTE Instructor: Mr. Jarvinen
8th-12th grades
Courses: Auto, Computers, Drafting, Wood Working

Over the past week, I have been brainstorming ways to incorporate blogs into my classroom.  After some thought, I have decided that any blogs or website that I incorporate will be for the sole purpose of strengthening the Career and Technical Education department.  The site would recognize any student achievements, awards, current / future projects and contests.
To increase the blogs / website usage in my lessons, I could post instructional videos and blue prints for viewing and downloading.  In addition, students can upload images and blueprints of projects they created in the future. Eventually, the blog will become a nice archive of past and present projects and like-minded individuals.

10 comments:

  1. Jarv,
    Your idea to use a blog to post students' awards and achievements is a good one. I had never considered that but a blog is a terrific way to make those announcements to the public. It would be far more interactive than simply posting the information to a website. Your students and parents could post reactions to the awards and give additional recognition to your students. Great idea!
    Trish

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    1. Thanks! To be totally honest, I found this assignment very challenging because of the type of classes that I teach. Student take classes like auto, drafting and woodshop to work with their hands. One of the challenges of being a CTE teacher is finding a happy medium where you don’t smother them with paperwork. Negative remarks about the program can drive away students. The best option I came up with was to showcase student achievements, projects and blueprints.

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  2. Jarv, I like that you are excited about using this as an opportunity to recognize student achievement! I love the idea of posting videos and blueprints or other documents students could access and use as part of their learning journey in your room. I think it is great that you'd keep them all archived. This reminds me of "flipping the classroom". The concept of a "flipped" classroom is teaching students online through blogs and videos, and then helping them apply what they learned in the classroom.

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    1. Thanks! I have heard about the “flipping the classroom” concept and know a few teachers that are practicing that method. Unfortunately, blogs and videos can’t provide all the information needed to strengthen a student’s education. I’m a firm believer in “hands-on” learning. Students can use the prior knowledge gathered from videos etc., but the real learning takes place by using tools. There is a lot of information left out of videos, that you can only experience while operation tools.

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  3. I too am a CTE teacher. I teach Family Consumer Science, in particular Culinary Arts. I think your idea of using the blog as a place to display students’ awards, work, and achievements is a fantastic idea. The public needs to see and understand that CTE programs are very important and are making an impact in a child’s education. I have been a CTE teacher for the past 5 years and in that time I have heard numerous negative comments from academic teachers. Some comments included that CTE is just an elective and they believe it is all fun and games, however with exposure to what we are teaching this can be changed. Have you experienced this before? Overall, our students love being in our classes and they do take a lot of pride in their projects. Allowing students to blog what they have done will boost their self-esteem as well as they can communicate with other CTE students from all over. I am currently in group D but there is difficulty accessing my group’s blogs.

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    1. I experience a negative vibe all the time for other departments etc. Half of the time, I feel like we are the dumping ground for the trouble makers etc. But the skills we teach are life skills. They can easily make a career out education we provide them.

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  4. What if you also have to students wrote about what they think are going to be the challenges they are going to face before the project and then when the project is completed, have them write about that the challenges actually were and what they would do differently if faced with this project again.

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    1. I like the idea, but couldn’t an open discussion during class accomplish the same thing? Blogs are great, but if the student’s face is burring in the computer screen all the time how can we build that teacher / students relationship? While typing is a great way of communication, it’s just letters etc., there is know personality or emotion attached to it.

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    3. With a blog, if someone searches it, they can give opinions about projects. If you teach more than one of the same class, the classes will know what the other is working on and will be able to give the students advice or ask questions. By keeping a blog, the words are in writing and can be reviewed at a later date, instead of just hearing it in class and trying to remember it.

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