Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Incorporating Blogging into the Classroom
Teaching first grade is a wonderful experience; students are just learning how to express themselves through writing. Incorporating a blog in my classroom has the potential to be a positive writing tool for my young authors. Due to it being early in the year and our writing pieces being very short, I would like to begin blogging by simply creating a classroom blog, open to parents to showcase their student’s writing. I feel this would be a great tool to use in fostering confidence in their writing abilities while teaching them about the concept of writing for an audience.
As the year progresses, it would be exciting to allow students to communicate through a blog with students from another district, state or country. Here they could compare what they were learning, how their school days compare, etc. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Any experienced classroom bloggers out there who would like to share some tips?
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Hi, Allison. I was wondering, do you have enough computers in your classroom for these youngsters to get on and learn about blogging? I didn't know if this was something that you were going to work with them on step-by-step as a class, or if you were going to work with the students one-on-one to explain the blogging process? I guess I struggle to picture someone as young as a first grader being able to get logged into a computer and access a blog site where they will then showcase their writing abilities. Are all your students fluent in English or is the language barrier going to be an issue as well? As a high school English teacher, I am anxious to hear how this will work with the younger grade levels. Please keep us posted with your struggles/successes! Good luck!
ReplyDeleteAs a former 1st grade teacher, I believe that creating a classroom blog is a wonderful way to have your 1st grade students express thought and share their writing. I agree that the teacher should facilitate the blogging in the beginning. During the second semester, what do you think about allowing your students who need enrichment to create their own blog. First grade students are young, but with our population of students, I believe that first graders who can read and write proficiently can begin to blog independently. I have a very "at risk" population at my school, and I would like to have my 2nd grade students begin this process. Is your school/classroom set up for this? Is this something that you think your population of students can handle?
ReplyDeleteAllison,
ReplyDeleteAs a high school technology teacher my concern is if you are planning to post your student work online and later collaborate with other school districts, do you have established parent permission release forms or school policy to be able to publish student work publically? As a high school teacher, we are not allowed to post or share any student work publically without a parental permission/release form. We can't even take a photo of student work, or of the student themselves, without a signed permission release form on file. This is something you will want to think about. If you already have something in place great! If not, here are a few suggestions to get started. A generic form letter could be created to be used by the whole school. It could be available for parents at open houses at the start of the year if you have these, so parents could fill them out right then and there, mailed home to parents, or the form could become part of the registration process when student register for school. Your school may have something in place, but since these are 1st graders, and it sounds like using blogs is not common practice for these students, I wanted to make you aware of the potential liablitlity issues attached to publishing student work online without proper parental permission.
Jennifer,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your advice. To answer your questions, my room has four student computers. However, we do have access to three different labs on our campus. I am still struggling with how to manage our day to allow for time to devote to this project.
Additionally, I am amazed each day at how tech savvy my students are. They blow me away with their abilities. We run several different programs at our school which require students to remember login names and passwords as well as web addresses. By the end of the first three weeks of school my students no longer needed assistance. Using our Active Board daily has also allowed them to learn much about the computers.
All of my students are fluent in English this year; about half of them are bilingual. There are three who are still struggling some with their basic syntax. Each one of them love to write and are always excited to share their work with other classes and peers.
Thank you for your comments!
Hayley,
ReplyDeleteHaving students, who are ready for the challenge, create their own blog is a great idea. I agree they need to be pushed. We too have a high “at risk” population at our school; most of my students do not have access to a computer outside of school. These students are the ones who really appreciate their time in the lab or at the student computers. Additionally, they are my students who seem to be the most tech savvy. With some practice and a lot of modeling, I think we can get this blogging project off the ground. Let me know what you do with your second graders.
Allison
Marcella,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your advice. In answer to your question, yes, we do have a form for permission of photos to be taken and work shown of students. At our school each parent is required to complete one of these forms when they register their child for school at the beginning of each year. After the forms are compiled by our technology team, a list of students who do did not receive permission from the parents to be photographed or share work are given to each teacher. I do have on child in my classroom that will not be able to participate. Any ideas on alternate assignments for this student that would relate to what the rest of the class will be doing?
Thank you for your comments.
Allison
Allison,
ReplyDeleteWe have a school website where each teacher has a site and I know the majority of my parents never even look at my page. How would you encourage your parents to be involved in looking at and using your blog?
Allison,
ReplyDeleteThat is a good question. We have experienced the same trouble with our own school website. One idea I have is to host an evening in which the parents would be invited to have refreshments and hear an explanation of blogging and how it will be used in our classroom. Any other suggestions?
Allison,
ReplyDeletefor the students that are unable to participate in the blogging,give them the responsibility of maybe compiling data from the blogging, such as school contacted, most interesting question, most unique ?? etc. You could have them journal or write a simple narrative for the class, sort of like a historian. Other ideas would be to have them participate via US mail (with pre arrangements with the other school) or have them do their collaboration with a student from another class.
Marcella,
ReplyDeleteThank you. Having them participate through US mail is a good alternative for those unable to participate in the blog. Thank you for your input.