Joanne Jacobs - Points of View

1. The top post on Joanne Jacobs’ blog is about using hip-hop as a teaching tool. Jacobs quotes a Teacher Magazine article that claims incorporating hip-hop rhymes, songs, dances and videos with other traditional teaching material helps students connect to tough concepts more easily. As a regular visitor to this site, I actually like this post because it is longer and more colorful than some of her other posts. As usual, I would like more commentary and opinion from Jacobs, but she only offers one vague sentence at the end of the post. I definitely think the teaching method mentioned in her post is innovative and clever and I found the reference links in this post helpful. I would visit this site again because I like the variety.

2. If I were visiting this blog for the first time because of interest in how hip-hop relates to education, I would not be very pleased with this site. I might use this post as a first step in a search for information, but it is not deep enough for me to get a complete picture of hip-hop teaching methods. Jacobs’ latest post could point someone in the right direction and provide good links, but I don’t think this first-time user would return. Jacobs’ posts are varied and will probably never touch on hip-hop education again. This post does serve a good purpose for someone doing preliminary research, but provides nothing substantial on the top item’s topic.

3. If I stumbled on this blog purely by chance, I would still find this top post interesting and somewhat useful. I like the idea of a NASA-endorsed hip-hop group that teaches kids about Newton’s Law. I think Flocabulary’s method of teaching rhymes sounds like an effective spin on old ways of memorizing information. But without commentary from Jacobs, I have no idea if this site will keep posting content that is relevant to my interests. I would prefer to get a sense of the author’s point of view upfront in their blog. It’s those strong opinions or analysis that hook a reader and keep them coming back.