Blogging

I have had a blog for several years now, and enjoy having a place to post my thoughts, etc. Considering what we as teachers are told about media literacy and the importance of social media, I decided to talk with my students about blogging and other forms of media this week. Imagine my surprise when a good number of my students didn't know what a blog was, had never heard of twitter, and were shocked when I told them I got headline news daily from The New York Times via my facebook page. I think we put more emphais on these alternate forms of communication than young people do. I know they text, email is a thing of the past to them, and they are on facebook, but I don't think they make use of social media and other media sources in the numbers we give them credit for. This week they had two assignments. One , to go online and read a blog, (I gave them some links), and then write a sample one to turn in in class, and the second was to interview a classmate, or contemporary about their use of social media, then interview an older family member, and compare the two. I am interested to see the results, and i'll share next week.