Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Blog-ucation

Blogging in the classroom is so new to me but the excitement of the possibilities drives me past my fears. I am thinking and contemplating ways in which I can incorporate blogging into my classroom. I work with fourth grade students and their technological skills vary. With the start of my new social studies unit on the New England Region, I am going to try to create blog assignments for the students. This will start as a simple question for them to respond to. I will require a response to my question posted and for starters a single response to a classmate. This will first require a lesson on how to find my blog and how to properly respond. I will also create a rubric to help guide their writing. I can only imagine the number of obstacles I am going to encounter, especially since I am a blogging rookie! So I pose a question to bloggers of all levels. What do I need to think through at a deeper level before beginning this project in the upcoming month?

6 comments:

  1. I think your idea of blogging for social studies is a wonderful way for your students to share their unique understanding of the concept. As a teacher you I think you could figure out the depth of knowledge your students posses and design blog topics to enhance their understanding. I will be interested to read about your progress with your blog. I am wondering ... do all your students have access to a computer at home? at school?

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  2. Students have access to computers at school and many, if not most, have a computer at home. There are so many other things that I am worried about. The legistics of it all is overwhelming! I am thinking a parent meeting would need to be had before introducing it to the children. Maybe send home a survey to parents? Then, the parents who are on board can join me for a meeting and learn the ins and outs? What I will expect, registering their child, etc? HELP!

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  3. I like the thought of starting small and building up to bigger things.

    Social Studies lends itself quite well to blogging. (I am someone that participates in a number of politically related blogs)

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  4. You'll definately need parental involvement on this. You can't be too careful when it comes to children and the internet. Would you want to have a parent or teacher read a child's comments before they are posted? I've never done a blog with my students either so I'm not much help but perhaps another teacher in your building has or maybe consult your principal. I'm sure most if not all the parents will support you in this if they are well informed as to how their child's postings are going to be monitored.

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  5. I am also a rookie to blogging and I have never used blogging with my students. I completely understand how you're feeling right now. I think discussing your ideas with your principal first and then conducting a parent survey would be a great way to see how much support you'll receive from this new blogging experience. As you already know, make sure that you have time set aside for any of your students who don't have computers or the internet at home to be able to post their blogs at school. Have that plan already in place to help ease the concerns for parents within your classroom. I think you have great ideas on how to get started and I wish you the best.

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  6. I found this post last year. I think it might help a lot :) http://web20intheclassroom.blogspot.com/2008/10/ways-to-use-blogs-in-your-classroom-and.html

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