Classroom Blogging
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Blogging in School
These ideas originally posted on Edu Blogging 101 wikispaces page.
With so many schools blocking student access to blogs it seems ridiculous that anyone would suggest blogging as a useful educational tool, right?
Wrong.
Blogs are tools, and like any tools they can be used or misused. Misuse occurs more often when there's a lack of instruction, so then why should schools turn a blind eye to them?
More and more, teachers are realizing exactly how cool blogs can be as a way to capture student interest and motivate them to learn.
So how can blogs be used to promote education? Let's take a look:
Teacher Blogs
Homework For years there have been web-savvy teachers who posted their homework on a website for their students and parents. This can still be done with blogs, and with many services teachers can post assignments daily with no knowledge of html, css, rss, and other random combinations of letters.
Keep Parents in the Loop Of course parents often like to know more about what's going on in your class than just "Do #s 2-106 on page 42." A teacher's blog could become an online newsletter that discusses all kinds of notable events such as units, scans of student work, field trip information and permission slips, and more.
Virtual Inservice Many teachers have decided to use their blogs as a forum for sharing their views on educational psychology, technology, and so on. Other teachers have the power to post comments in each others' blogs or even write larger responses in their own blogs. The result is a series of conversations where teachers share their knowledge and experiences with each other where everyone comes out better informed at the end.
Class Blogs
This week in class, we...
Some teachers encourage students to work as a group on a single blog, resulting in a sort of online newspaper where different students work on different articles. Knowing that their audience is now not just the teacher but the entire world, students often end up going above and beyond what they would ever do if they just had to submit a report, two pages, double spaced, MLA format.
Student Work
Along the same lines, each student could have their own blog where they can post their assignments. The teacher and classmates could then comment on each student's work, providing concrete evidence of class participation.
Celebrate and Share Class Learning & Successes
Share the achievements, learning & successes that your students are having in your classroom. Parents and relatives from overseas can view and comment on learning taking place. This is also a great way to celebrate the great things that are happening in your classroom.... no longer will students be able to say to parents that they did "nothing" at school today!
Networking
Use your blog to network with other schools within the country or across the world! Perhaps you could exchange mascots/toys via mail and then use your blog to record all the amazing things they get up to on the other side of the country/world. Great to encourage writing and digital photo taking.... plus you would have a REAL audience (the other class!). Students could also find out more about the other students in the class... do they have similar likes/dislikes/hobbies etc.
Blogging Activities
These ideas were originally posted on the classroomblogging wikispaces page.
- A first week diary for those early days in September (Sandaig Otters for lots of examples of this)
- Publishing daily work in shared writing during the literacy hour - possible uses of a Wiki to develop a longer piece of writing. (See Meole Brace English blog for an example of developing creative writing using trackbacks).
- Record and publish video to the blog of IWB notes or sessions.
- Book reviews, share thoughts and comments (positive and negative) about books recently read - it will encourage reading! (http://web.mac.com/barbaraainscough/iWeb/Barbara%20Ainscough/Blogs.html)(Also Meole Brace English - using trackbacks from individual blogs)
- A photo blog - upload favourite images linked to a theme eg. harvest, freezing, new life. Ask students to comment on reason why it's a favourite. (http://web.mac.com/barbaraainscough/iWeb/Barbara%20Ainscough/Blogs.html)(Meole Brace Art - reviewing famous artists' work which could extend to peer review. Follow the trackbacks to see the pictures. Podcast critiques, reviews and comments like here)
- Comments about which leisure/ after school activities they are involved in - It might encourage other kids to have a go at something new. Provide some structure to the blog eg. Activity?, Times?, day of week? would you recommend it? star rating etc.
- A daily weather blog - accurate records (eg. temp., rainfall, wind direction) through description and photographs. Just taking the old weather records to a different level!
- Community of Practice - learning new software/developing an FAQ (Lacon Childe ICT here and here)
- Pupil feedback on units of study (As here and here)
- Podcasting in a foreign language (like here)
- Podcasting weekly newsletters for parents
- To get a few children started blogging I find template based poetry useful. Some of the posts at Poets are of this sort, keeping the poems short is a good idea if you don't have many computers.
- Book reviews can be illustrated with scans of children's art work, children seem to find using a scanner to scan there own pictures motivating ( example )
- Posting homework tasks every week - eg. maths problems, children to comment as their task.
- Ask teachers within the school from other classes to comment on work - a weekly headteacher blog would be a nice way to comment on work across the school, I think I will ask my head teacher when we start!
- Concept Cartoons for science posted prior to a lesson or a week of work. Children are asked to comment on what they think will happen and then these can be used as a start to the first lesson or as an initial assessment.
- Post of video of SMARTBoard or IWB session during a maths lesson. For example the written methods for multiplication are included, the children can use it as a revision aid - the parents get to see how the school wants it set out AND the children get to comment on their favored method.
- Video of handwriting on IWB can also be posted in the same way.
- "All about me - I am unique" (links to RE) posting simple CV work in the first few weeks - links to autobiography in Literacy.
- Post homework maths problems to solve.
- Local history - family members can be asked to help blog their memories of how the town / area has changed over the years. Perhaps post an old image from the past and ask grandparents etc to comment with children from your class.
- Posting images from a digi microscope for the children to comment on. "What is under our microscope?" - or even asking for people to guess what the image is and to comment on the suggestions.
- Post a health or ecological "problem" and have students come up with innovative solutions with proper research to back up the solution's feasibility.
- Establish some safe guidelines then simply let the kids write about their world and ideas and thoughts.
- Put up a blog post on a specific issue and invite students to contribute comments on the issue. As comments can be moderated before going live this is a simple and safe way to blog (as here)
