Before last week, I never realized that blogging is slowly becoming a big part of the educational world. I had heard about blogging before, but I never realized that it was already so big. In the Diane Penrod article, I learned that blogging is giving a new voice to many people, including those with special needs. In the Kindergarten class that I am student teaching in there is a student who is hearing impaired. He is not able to recognize the sounds of words, but he is able to understand sign and body movement. This got me to thinking about where he will be in 5 years.
As I read in the article, students who are hearing or visually impaired are usually in a unsupportive atmosphere. They feel that their voices are not being heard and they are at a place where they are outsiders, because they are not hearing/seeing what is going on around them.
From looking on the internet, I learned that those who are hearing impaired blog by just typing or by "vlogging", which is leaving a video, by sign language. An example of such a blog is The Ear of My Heart. This is a blog written by a deaf woman named LaRonda Zupp. In this particular post, she speaks of how she was thinking of stopping her blog/vlog, until her blog was mentioned and cited in a student's master research paper. She speaks of how this gave her renewed strength to continue her blog. She sends the message out there to never give up and that even if you are deaf, your voice can still be heard.
As discussed in the Penrod article, those who are held apart from their classmates for having an impairment can feel accepted from their blog writings. It is a way for them to "develop a voice". I had never thought about this before and, if I end of teaching higher grades, I will keep blogging in mind to give them ease about their writing and to introduce them to a world where their work will be read and listened to.
I agree with everything you said in your post. I never realized how popular and useful blogging can be in the classroom--until I read the Penrod article. I also really appreciate the point and the resource you gave about using blogging with special needs children. In my post, I talked about how blogging can be beneficial for both special needs children and for ESOL children. My class is full of ESOL kids and I found it very interesting how blogs can help these students even more than the non ESOL student.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I did not touch on blogging and ESOL students in my post, I am now looking back and realizing how effective it can actually be. Giving students this opportunity really allows them to express themselves, or like you said, "develop a voice". That is something I never thought about either and it really does make sense. Allowing students to share and express themselves will make them more comfortable with their differences, and show them that we are all connected someway or another!
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