Alexandra Overby tells in her article about the new form of communication in a class at the age of technology. She represents us a weblog and describes its purposes (the tutor blog, the learner blog, and the class blog) and advantages (easy to create and exploit, reflection of student’s artistic growth, new experience of conversing in a class, development of critical thinking, understanding your work in minds of others, development of someone’s particular art creation, equality and opportunity to express own opinion). The author describes her experience of such a way of electronic communication. So, she created a blog (her classroom) and gave an opportunity for students to show there their works. Then, she pictures how the life inside of the e-classroom was developing. Now she proposes three key elements to make such a communication successful (blog is a cooperative learning environment, the teacher appears as a facilitator-moderator, and students need to be taught how to write for a blog).
This article has definitely kindled my interest. The more I was reading it, the more I wanted to practice it in all my classes. In my opinion, Alexandra Overby presented the clear idea of new communication among teacher and students that is useful for both parts. The strong point is equality in the e-class, in which anyone can take part in a conversation. Quite opposite situation is in ordinary class, where someone is shy, and other one is afraid to make a mistake in front of other students. When we communicate via computer we feel ourselves more confident. Another good point is that one’s own work becomes collaborative, and the author hears the critique of the second and third part. It is more necessary to see whole picture, than just your own view. In addition to all these advantages, the growth of an artist is recorded so that he or she can see own progress. At the end, it will motivate one to achieve more. In my opinion, any teacher should at least try to carry out this method in her or his class.
