I started blogging with my third graders this
fall, and our first purpose was to communicate with a classroom in Philadelphia
about our Global Read Aloud book.
I find that blogging can offer opportunities for
students to develop their communications skills through meaningful writing
experiences. Our blog has been a
great tool to motivate students to write, and to write well.
Our blog, Google Apps for Education and class
twitter account have also helped to address the Common Core State Standards for
writing. Specifically standard six,
which calls upon students to use technology to "produce and publish
writing and to interact and collaborate with others." Homerun!
So how can you get started with student blogging? These steps helped my students have successful
writing experiences:
Establish a purpose.
Decide what you want students to write about. Ask yourself:
Will you ask students to write reflective math or
science journals, book reviews, or opinion pieces on current events?
How can the blog support learning objectives in
the discipline(s) you teach?
We have blogged about reading, writing, science,
social studies and Genius Hour.
Posts have ranged from book reviews to mystery biographies.
Decide on a format and an online platform.
I am using KidBlog for our classblog. It is a free platform developed
specifically for teachers and students. As the KidBlog administrator, I have many options when it
comes to privacy. Students' blogs are completely private, open only to class
members, and are password protected.
Because I work with third graders, I chose to restrict our audience to
parents and other adults parents choose to share the password with.
I also can enable comments moderation, so any
comments on the blog posts are emailed to you before they are published for all
to see.
Preparation, procedures and practice.
Structure your blogging and prepare your students
to understand the fact that others will read their work. We want to be thoughtful about what we
publish on our blogs.
This generates a great deal of excitement and
motivation, but also requires a great deal of responsibility on students'
parts. Remind them that blogs offer readers a chance to see their work. Talk
explicitly with students about the ramifications of negative blog posts and blog
comments.
Also, think about:
How often you would like students to post?
How will they title posts?
Will you be posting a question and/or model
response?
Determine Audience.
We have a narrow audience, our families and a
classroom in Philadelphia. For my
third graders, this is enough for now.
Is it worth it?
Setting up a blogging project may sound like a
hassle—but it's worthwhile.
It is important for students to have their writing
read by more people than just their teacher. When they know that their
families, their classmates, and people from around the world can read what they
write, the impact is measurable. Students pay closer attention to everything
from the mechanics of writing to word choice to structure to clarity. They read
and re-read their own work before submitting. They asked their friends to read
it, too.
My students are engaging in meaningful
conversations about writing. They were asking questions and sharing
observations more sophisticated than any I'd heard from them before. My students
are writers, an ultimate goal for any teacher.
Other reasons to blog:
It provides students with supervised practice
using social media. We learn about citizenship and copyright in blogging
projects.
Learn about leaving "digital footprint."
Students think critically about the information
they want to share.
As you can see, our classroom blog has been
keeping me busy weekly and I have not visited my own blog for a few
months. Which leads me to think
about my personal and professional blogging goals for next year.
I hope you think about the benefits of blogging,
twitter, and other online learning and writing opportunities. They are worth the time.