Why do you blog?
Howdy! Please share why blogging is such a valuable experience in your classroom? Any blogging best practices you’d like to share?
Feel free to leave links to podcasts and videos of your children speaking.
With appreciation,
Miguel
September 12, 2007
10 Comments »
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Our students blog because we want to help them connect to the world. Also, blogging gives them a purpose for improving their writing and editing skills - a wider audience. We just introduced blogging to a new class and already they want to know if they can blog over the weekend. What more could we ask for?http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=88116
Why would students want to write on paper for their teacher to read when they can blog for the world to read? My six year olds think they are the best writers in the world and that what they have to say is important because people from around the world read and comment on their work.
Miguel,
I’ve tried to review the school year in blogging with my third graders for the last two years. There’s a LOT of info here: tinyurl.com/yuuoav. The “Intro” will link to the series I did from the 05-06 year.
There is some multimedia stuff I prepared for the International Reading Association last May, at tinyurl.com/25qy5n. Good luck - Mark
Rats. That last link in the previous comment should go here. - Mark
I blog for many reasons, and for a variety of purposes.
1. I use it to help my students learn: blogging helps them practice important literacy skills in what is (I hope, at least a little) a less stressful environment than worksheets and 5-paragraph essays. Last year, one of the professional goals that I had for my classroom was to increase opportunities for my students to write.
2. I want to share things that I’ve found with other teachers & parents who might find what I have already done useful. A lot of research has gone into the problems that are inherent in schools, and one that I’ve felt and been cognizant of has been that teachers are isolated. Using a blog (and a wiki), I can share things i’ve created or found with lots of other teachers, so hopefully, we’re not as isolated anymore. This can only be a good thing.
Blogging is fun! Sometimes it helps my students see themselves as others see them. When students blog, they tend to be more careful about what they say and how they say it, knowing there is great potential for others to “see” them through their blogs. Students will re-read their blogs while they may or may not re-read pencil to paper work. They make revisions because they want to, not because I want them to!
Blogging is a great communication tool!
I want to keep the blog I created… lagrafx.edublogs.org :o)
Ms. A
GervinTech.edublog.org
This is the third year I have blogged with my class. We blog because students need a real audience and real comments. I cannot express how better the writing become when students understand that anyone can read the words the student types. Knowing that their parents, their peers and even unknown readers can see and feel the ideas a student has is a powerful tool. I believe that these two reason have allowed my students to take more serious our assignments. It holds them accountable to the task. I installs a reality to the task that a scenario or stages task cannot. Last year I was able to tap into the blog entry of the faculty at another school. The blog entry we read questioned the structure of school. This was a topic my students discussed in class and on our blogsmeister pages. We extended our conversation with the faculty on the other blog and the student enjoyed the exercise. It was a great way to legitimize the reading of Plato.
In honor of full disclosure, my students commented on the blog page of my wife, but the students never knew this information. It was a coincidence that my wife read an article on Edutopia addressing the same topic my students had discussed. It was a great coincidence and an exciting exercise. Since then I am actively looking for bloggers discussion the themes we discuss in class.
The conversation noted above:
musingsfromtheacademy.wordpress.com/2007/02/20/a-futurist-speaks-of-schools/
http://www.classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=21053&user_id=21053&blog_id=195641&position2=-1
My classblog:
http://www.classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=21053
The bottom line, if you want to authenticate your conversations share them with others outside your walls.
Enjoy your day,
Kyle Stevens
My class of grade 6 & 7 students have been blogging since February 2007. Blogging has opened up a new world to them and their writing. As teachers we are always talking to students about writing for an audience, now they have an authentic audience. When the students know that there work will be read by many others the students take more ownership for their writing. Blogging has also given the students opportunities to read the work of other students around the world. When my students ask if they can blog in my head I’m hearing them ask if they can read and write.