teddy bears go blogging

I hope it is ok to post things other than what it was requested in class. I found it could be a useful way to write down my remarks on the texts I read, so this posting will contain notes on teddy bears go blogging.

the text was written by Brenda Sherry, a second grade teacher in Canada. She narrates her experience with using technology with her class, through the introduction of the blogging to replace the email in a project called the Teddy Bear Project, in which students of different classes in different countries exchange teddy bears and report their experiences.

It was interesting to note how she describes the way she discovered and explored new features of the the blog and its usefulness to her students. The use of the new media made possible many different and interesting activities, and it motivated the students for a number of reasons, which Sherry considered a successful enterprise. one of the reasons she points out is that "the focus was on the communication, rather than the technology."

This experience narrated by Sherry exemplifies the principles set on Sara Dexter's text "eTIPS" - just to mention the first 2 eTIPs, technology was used to serve the educational outcome and to add value to the educational goal. It added value indeed, it got not only the students involved, but also parents and relatives, and it became more than just a classroom assignment, the students
kept the blog going even during vacation. I wonder if the teacher got paid overtime for editing the comments ;-).