This year I decided to start blogging with my class. I heard about some other classes doing it via twitter as well as my colleague Hugh McDonald, and I thought I would give it a try. I have a few students in my class who groan every time I ask them to pull out their journals, so I thought perhaps this would be a better way. I also thought it would be a perfect way for my students to share about the progress of their Genius Hour projects. So I set up the account on Kidblog (very easy to do) and away we went! The kids loved it! Research shows that kids are drawn to blogging because it gives them an authentic audience and I completely agree. My students love commenting on each other's posts and often spend quite a bit of their own time at home reading each classmate’s blog and offering a comment. It has been wonderful watching my students read and write in a meaningful way and without hearing a single groan.
With all new things, we did have a few blips though and I would like to share those with you today so that you can learn from our mistakes! So here are 3 Things to Consider Before Blogging with your Class:
1. Model how to write a good blog entry first! I know that this sounds obvious...but in all my excitement starting this new 2.0 tool, I did not take the time to show my students how to write a thoughtful and meaningful post. Next time, I would take the time to draft one with the whole class, using the projector.
2. Model how to write a thoughtful comment! Sounds like number 1, but I am talking about the comments they make on the blog entries. When we first started blogging, my students wrote things like, "that's nice" or "me too". It drove me crazy...why weren't they writing thoughtful comments? Well, once again, I had never modeled how to write a good comment. My bad. I would really recommend practising this with your students first. In fact, I recently read an article in which the teachers gave the students thoughtful prompts before they started writing, such as: "I wonder..., Have you considered..." (Davis, A. and E. McGrail, 2009). What a great idea!
3. And finally, have every student change their passwords after you hand out their log-ins/passwords! It will save you a lot of grief!
Any other advice you would give?
Happy Blogging :)
With all new things, we did have a few blips though and I would like to share those with you today so that you can learn from our mistakes! So here are 3 Things to Consider Before Blogging with your Class:
1. Model how to write a good blog entry first! I know that this sounds obvious...but in all my excitement starting this new 2.0 tool, I did not take the time to show my students how to write a thoughtful and meaningful post. Next time, I would take the time to draft one with the whole class, using the projector.
2. Model how to write a thoughtful comment! Sounds like number 1, but I am talking about the comments they make on the blog entries. When we first started blogging, my students wrote things like, "that's nice" or "me too". It drove me crazy...why weren't they writing thoughtful comments? Well, once again, I had never modeled how to write a good comment. My bad. I would really recommend practising this with your students first. In fact, I recently read an article in which the teachers gave the students thoughtful prompts before they started writing, such as: "I wonder..., Have you considered..." (Davis, A. and E. McGrail, 2009). What a great idea!
3. And finally, have every student change their passwords after you hand out their log-ins/passwords! It will save you a lot of grief!
Any other advice you would give?
Happy Blogging :)
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