Today I gave my kids a math test and a reading test. They worked really hard during their reading tests, and I could tell they needed something to do that didn't require them to sit quietly. I wanted to give them some literacy task that they could enjoy and that would allow them to talk and think creatively, so I decided to introduce their kidblogs to them. They were beyond thrilled. They had a million questions (one of which was, "Can we put in pictures?" What is it with them and pictures??) but they were also asking questions about if they were allowed to blog at home. I could tell they were excited, so I showed them how they were going to post and lay down some simple guidelines for their first time. All they were going to do was post. Their topic was "My Favorite Book".
I thought that once I gave them an actual topic to write about, they would realize that I was actually asking them to work. They didn't! Even better, most of the responses they wrote (or are still drafting...they had to be perfect) are better than their in-class work. And they ended up working collaboratively to improve each other's blogs, because they were so excited to read each other's work that they were giving constructive feedback. They were editing and revising others' blogs (kindly). According to the National Educational Technology Standards for students and the Common Core, working collaboratively using technology is very important, so today, while my kids were having fun, I was actually meeting several standards....just because I started using a blog in my classroom!
I'm so jealous! I want my kids to begin blogging too but I don't have enough working computers in our computer lab to make this feasible. What a great way to get them interested in reading and writing. How often do you think you will give them a new topic? Can't wait to hear more about it!
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking about having them blog once a week just to see how it goes (right now it's taking some of them FOREVER to compose on the computer). We might increase to twice or more a week depending on how the majority adapt to it.
DeleteWow! That is wonderful...I don't doubt they were thrilled to be using technology as a vehicle for submitting an assignment. I know that this is something that I have to do in my own class and as you suggested earlier it would be just great if we could pair up and have our classes be blogging partners. Did you find it difficult to introduce or monitor? Were you confident in teaching your students to blog? I would love to talk to you further about this so that hopefully I might get up the nerve to put this into action in my own class!
ReplyDeleteUsing Kidblog was super easy. I set up my account so that I had to approve all posts before they were published (which is good because then you can see what they're writing, but also bad because sometimes 8 of them finish at a time and they all want to see their posts but they have to wait until I approve them). The hardest part of introducing it was how eager they were about doing everything; they didn't want to wait for any directions!
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