Blogging has definately been a new experience for me, filled with a few challenges. Although I have had some bumps in the road with starting my own blog, I can really see the benefits of using one in my classroom. My head is already full of neat things that I could do.
Since I am new to this technology I feel as though I need some time to learn more about it before I can let my students start going on to a blog. To begin, I was thinking that I would make my blog become a place to share information with parents. Communication between parents and teachers is very important, and this would be one way to communicate with them. I would like to be able to share with parents the things that their second grader is doing in school. I could include pictures of the different things that we have been doing. I was thinking about how my students could become involved in the process, though. I thought that I could have my students help me create the journal entries for the blog. Each week, I would have a student write what we did that week. Then, I would type it into the blog for parents to see. This blog would then also become a showcase for student writing. I believe that students would get more excited to write and to see their work on the internet!
Does anyone have any feedback? I would love to hear your ideas!
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I also decided to start easy by making my blog a place where parents/students can check to see what is going on in the class. I like the idea of having students write up what they learned.
ReplyDeleteThe only real issue I see is making sure it stays updated. No matter how busy we might get, it is important that the blog is regularly updated to keep parents/ students checking it regularly. So that leads to another issue, do not spend so much time working on this blog that other duties or lesson preps get pushed aside. We still have to maintain lives outside of the classroom too.
What if each week a pair of students was in charge of maintaining it with a given amount of allotted time? They could change the look, put on what they thought was important, up load pictures, of course while meeting the predetermined set of criteria. I think this could really work, especially in grades where teachers were with the same students for a bigger chunk of the day. I may do this even as a high school teacher. I could make it an assignment or project, and assign each student a week.
If this route were taken, I would imagine the teacher would need to change the password each week for the new groups, just to deter pranking.
I agree, that the blog in your classroom, especially used as a means of communication, should be updated as regularly as possible. I think you might find yourself forgeting to blog on a Friday, becuase let's face it, Friday afternoons in an elementary classroom are crazy enough as it is.
ReplyDeleteIn my fifth grade classroom, my students blog daily. We began this process on Dec. 16, and have only missed one day (December 23 (Holiday Party)). I have made blogging a daily job for two students each day. Essentially, they jot down what we did at school that day...in their own words. I take a minute or two to check/edit their work, and then press publish.
At the current time, I plan to cycle all my students (22) through once, and then hope to change it so our bloggers change daily. I like the idea of having a fresh voice each day; however, the kids have to learn how to use the blog first (so that is why I have them blog for one full week, before handing the job over to someone else).
I watched third graders do this same task about one month ago, and said, "I bet my fifth graders could do that!" My guess is, your second graders can do it too.
Good luck,
Chris
I think that having students doing some of the updates is a great idea. It will really give them a sense of ownership of the blog and the classroom. They will most certainly be excited to go home and show their parents the new updates, especially on the days that they've updated.
ReplyDeleteMy advice is that if you are trying to figure out how to get the ball rolling on this, check out some existing class blogs online. This will give you an idea of what others are doing and then you can modify it to meet your needs.
Thanks for all of your ideas. I definately agree in that the hardest part is going to be remembering to complete the blog. I think that if I make it a part of the schedule each week, and remember to put it in my plans, that will help me to remember. I think that my students will also probably remind me! :)
ReplyDeleteI also like the idea of making it a weekly job for a couple of my students. They can work on the blog for a certain week. That will help me to make sure that everyone gets a chance to share what we did during a week.
Brett, I think you are right in that I should start by searching for some other blogs. This way I can get ideas of things that I would like to put on my blog as a starting point. I can always add or change things from there like you said.
Thanks for all of your ideas and comments.