Ideas for Blog Use in the Classroom: Travel blogs, journal, discussions, questions, literature circles, class meetings, writing assignments...
Purpose of Blog Use: Blogs are a way to motivate and gain student participation with writing assignments. They provide an authentic audience for student work. Students are able to interact with one another about assignments and content in a different way as well as outside the school day.
My Thinking about Blogs: I definitely have seen students work much harder and participate at a much higher level when they know that their work is going to be visible to everyone in the classroom. I recently had my students write travel blogs about a country they researched and had almost 100% participation and turn in rate, which showed the extreme benefit of blogging in the classroom.
Blog Rationale: I teach sixth grade Literacy and Social Studies and have only used blogging with my students in a modified format, using a discussion board on my classroom website. I ask my students questions and have assigned the travel blog assignment as mentioned above. Overall, I feel my students like the blog experience as technology is something that interests them. Blogging is one way to make things different for students in the classroom and help them to experiment and learn about "new" technology.
Happy Blogging!
Tiffany
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Travel blogs...what an interesting idea! I'm thrilled to discuss blogs with an experieinced "classroom blogger." You mentioned that almost 100% of your students participated. Since you are using blogs for assignments, would you mind sharing how you assess student progress? Also, how did you accomodate blog time?
ReplyDeleteHi Ms. Tiffany - your blog site looks really great! I saw your idea about using a blog for literature circles and I thought about using blogging as a forum for the students' literature discussion roles. For example - the discussion director could post his/her questions and the other group members have to respond - the vocabulary enricher posts the words and the group member have to locate and define them, the literary luminary posts a passage from the novel and the other have to write a reaction about it, the character captain posts a reaction about a character and the others have to predict what will happen or locate evidence from the text that support or refute that characterization.
ReplyDeleteTiffany,
ReplyDeleteWhat negative issues have you come across with regards to posts coming or going on your site that were inappropriate and how do you stop this from happening?
Ruth Crawford
Tiffany,
ReplyDeleteDid you give your students a rubric or rules regarding blogging? Have you had any issues with inappropriate postings?
Lora
Thanks for your responses everyone!
ReplyDeleteSG Wine: I used a rubric for the travel blog assignment, so studets knew what was expected of them. To accomodate for blog time I gave students class time to work on their blogs. I recommend that they type into a word document, so they can save it if they run out of class time.
Maria: Thanks for the great literature circle blog ideas, I will definitely incorporate these ideas!
Ruth: I use a "modified" blog for my students, using our discussion board on my classroom website. This has a moderator so that I can make sure inappropriate things don't get posted! Maria mentions on her blog that she uses edublogs and that has allowed her to select that she will moderate posts. I would not feel comfortable with a blog if I didn't know that I had "moderator" control. Kids will be kids, and I have seen some inappropriate things!
Lora: I did give my students a rubric for the assignment, but not rules; great idea!
Happy Blogging!
~Tiffany
Tiffany, I am really, really impressed with the blog that you have created here. Your ideas for blog usage all seem to be great and I am adding them to my toolbox of ideas for blog usage. Is there an alternative given to those who do not participate in the classroom blog?
ReplyDeleteShirley