Tuesday, November 10, 2009

How to use blogs in the Classroom

The ways one could use blogs in the classroom is really dependent on how creative the blog creator wants to be. I think blogs would be used in a variety ways to deliver information, socialize or connect to people with similar interests. I created a blog about four years ago for elementary students to use to keep academic skills sharpened over the summer. I set up activities for students to complete each week which included academic, gross motor and a recipe to make which may or may not have been food related. The students were offered an incentive to complete the activities each week and they had to post at the end of the week in regards to what they thought about the activity or how they used the activity. I didn't have a strong showing I think only about ten students participated all the way through. At the beginning of the school year each student who successfully completed the activities were given gift cards to stores around the area.

At the elementary level, I would like to set up a blog where students would go and discuss different genera they were reading in their guided reading groups. I would like to expand this notion and develop a book club type of blog where students could go and talk about specific parts of chapter books they are reading. I may post guiding questions to help develop the discussion threads.

I think that blogging this way will help students develop a deeper understanding of course material or questioning skills. I am a teacher consultant/intervention teacher at the elementary level and I hope blogging would allow me to connect children to a deeper level of thinking. My rational is for this thought is that students are already exposed to various forms of media and technology I would like to develop skills that would allow students to further develop their academic skills in the area of reading.

9 comments:

  1. Ok I am going to try this again. I had written a blog and then did not follow through on the posting and it did not post. So if I can remember what I said here goes.:) I think helping elementary children learn about blogging is a really good thing. They need to learn the good things about blogging and how to do it appropriately. I know of a teacher in my district that taught elementary and used Moodle to teach some of her lessons. It has a great blogging capabilities with it and the teacher can keep track of what they talk about, how often and when. The students loved it. They learned so much about the subject she was using it in. I want to find a way to use it in my class.

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  2. I would think that blogging at the elementary level would be difficult. When you did the summer program, were all the posts were voluntary? Did the student do the post with guidance from parents? What ages are you teaching?
    I hope the elementary teachers in my district start blogging so students are familiar and mfortable with blogging when they reach the High School. What if your students don't have a computer at home? Lots of questions, but these are some of the ideas that have been going through my head as I try to set up a lesson using blogs with my math classes.
    Good luck!

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  3. Thanks for the thoughtful posts. In the past I have found blogging at the elementary challenging. I also teach in a community where computers in the home are not the norm. When I created the "Summer Bridges" blog the intent was to have parents work in conjunction with students on these activities. I feel that at this level students do not have the ability to blog independently. I am a teacher consultant/intervention provider at my building this year. I work with students from the ages of eight to ten.

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  4. I too am an elementary teacher. I am finding it hard to incorporate blogging in my class. Blogging about genres is a great idea to start with. This could be an online book club of sorts. I can see many of the same problems that you and fellow bloggers have. What if children do not have access to a computer, what if aprents will not allow students to use this type of communication? What if students so not have an email address to register with? With the younger age groups, it really depends on the suport of the parents on how successful this will be. They are going to need a great deal of monitoring and modeling to grasp this new written form of communication!

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  5. For elementary students, using a blog where students can share their writings is a good way to start. having the students complete the writing process off-line, then posing final work on the blog where they can get comments about style and/or their ideas is a great way to start. It takes the pressure of having to create 'live' content. Once they get the hang of it, then some students may be ready to 'go live' with regular style blog, (one where they write directly to the blog)

    It takes a lot of planning to work something new like blogging into you curriculum.

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  6. I am also an elementary teacher and I am very curious to see how blogging can been successful with the primary grades. I work with 7 and 8 year olds and while I think they would be able to handle blogging with parental support, I am worried that many may not receive that support. Michele, you have some great ideas about using questions raised in guided reading groups to help spring board blog conversations. I think parents would support your ideas, however you would definitely have to make sure that you have time alloted for students with no internet or computer access at home to work at school and post their blogs. Then, the responsibility would be on you to monitor and support those students. I would even suggest having a parent volunteer to come in on the days when the blogs are due to help you monitor and support these students. Good luck with everything and I hope it works out wonderfully for you and your students.

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  7. I like what Jewel said about having a parent volunteer come in an help monitor blogging. Ways that you could alot time for students who don't have computer access is have them come in early or stay after school. I teach at the high school level so I could also ask teachers in other classes if a student has all their work done could he/she work on the computer in that teachers class.

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  8. Thanks for the wonderful tips and points to ponder. I along with the title 1 teacher are going to be spending time in 3rd and 4th grade working on various stages of writing. I think this would be a great point to have the students post their completed pieces to a blog site. The plan was to incorporate volunteers to help at the various stages of the writing process but I do believe that we could also get volunteers to blog them to a site. Hopefully we will have this up and running before this class is up so I can report back on the process.

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  9. I would think blogging in the elementary level would be very difficult. I 'm a 6th grade math teacher, and keeping students engaged long enough would be a challenge. What about those students who don't have access to the internet.

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