BP2_2010051_EducationalUsesforBlogs

In an article entitled Digital Discussion: Take Your Class to the Internet, author Helena Echlin (2007) discusses five approaches in which a teacher can structure their blog. At the very basic level, one can structure their class blog to manage the distribution of homework, handouts or announcements. Some teachers post information about the day and require students to summarize important topics or events. Another approach for constructing a functioning blog for your classroom is to use it as a place to keep journal entries of student learning. Students can reflect upon their classroom

performance and create goals for themselves. The third option Echlin describes for the reader is for the teacher to create a class discussion on their blog. A teacher posts an essential question and students respond to the prompt and to each other on the blog. My husband uses this method while teaching reading clubs. The last approach she suggests is to create a blog to foster the personal expression of your students. Create a space for students to blog about whatever they want. Encourage students to share personally written poetry, or reactions to books and articles that they read and most importantly, respond to each other to create a web-based dialogue.

I have always been a big fan of blogging. Being my school’s webmaster, I’ve been encouraging people to create a blog and use it as their webpage. Communication is easier and more freely given when the site is live and interactive. This year I really encouraged my third grade students to go on the blog and use it as a discussion board. A group of children asked if they could do a book group on it and document their thoughts on reading. The students mostly access the blog to comment on the day’s happenings. I like to post a question related to our learning and link websites to the post so students can explore the topic and respond. I’ve had a great number of students engage in these extracurricular exploratory opportunities. On Fridays I post a suggestion for a fun educational activity for the kids to explore and report back on. For example, in previous weeks students were challenged to make a parachute and do time trials with it tied to an action figure. Another week students were encouraged to put seeds out for the hungry, migrating birds in the region. I feel like the use of a classroom blog that encourages students, parents and teachers to interact, only strengthen the bonds between home and school.

I found another interesting article written in 2009 by Momo Chang that describes a unique idea that I think i might like to implement next school year. In third grade we teach about the history of Connecticut and explore the many reasons why West Hartford is such a great place to be. The article is written as a how-to create a blog about the places that the children live in. Each child would get their own blog and use it as a kind of informational journal describing what makes West Hartford and Connecticut such a great place. Students could choose a perspective such as entertainment or history and write through the lens of that topic or students could just journal about their adventures in our wonderful state. I think this would be a motivational and exciting use of time during Writer’s Workshop.

Chang, M. (2009). How to: Start a place-based blog. Edutopia. Retrieved May 7, 2010, from

http://www.edutopia.org/place-based-blogging-how-to

Echlin, H. (2007). Digital discussion: Take your class to the internet. Edutopia. Retrieved May 5, 2010,

from http://www.edutopia.org/digital-discussion-take-your-class-to-internet