Classroom Blogging

Here’s a collection of research about blogging with students.  The site contains links to the research article and summarizes some of the key findings, such as:

• A majority (78%, n=56) of individual entries demonstrated some level of reflective writing.
• The results of this study give insight into the efficacy of blogs when used by middle school educators. These results demonstrate the potential usefulness of blogs in promoting reflective practice with practicing teachers. However, results do not demonstrate that blogs are being utilized effectively for reflective purposes.
• Weblogs provide an excellent opportunity for educators to advance literacy through storytelling and dialogue.
• The characteristics of weblogs such as the personal space it provides and the linkages with an online community create an excellent computer–mediated communication context for individual expressions and collaborative interactions in the form of storytelling and dialogue
• As a performance predictor, weblogs appear to be more appropriate than traditional course work. Capturing breadth and depth of topic coverage, and requiring students to place their work under public scrutiny appears to better prepare them for a comprehensive final exam and overall course performance.
• Weblogs enhance the traditional learning log, which facilitates cognitive constructivism, with collaborative elements, which facilitate social constructivism.

What do you think?

Here’s an article that describes different ways to use blogs:

• As administration tools
• As discussion tools
• As publication tools

Blogging techniques for the K12 classroom

Here are 83 new blog themes that will work with the BCBE blogging system.  Let me know if you see one you want to use and I’ll get it installed for you.

In this video clip gives an overview of how some British elementary students are blogging in their classes.  From the site:

Steve O’Hear, one of Britain’s digital evangelists, explores how blogs can be used in schools. Steve finds some enthusiastic primary age bloggers and sees how it helps in literacy, ICT skills and a range of other subjects.

He finds many of the benefits extend beyond the curriculum. Blogging can help pupils:

• Develop confidence
• Improve their self expression
• Get a real sense of fulfilment from publishing their work

Blogosphere video from Teachers’ TV

Who in your classroom watches everything that goes on?  Who in your classroom always knows what the homework is?  Who always knows how the science experiment went?  Who knows the details about today’s discussion of the book your class is readying?  The classroom pet sees everything that goes on in your room.  This makes the pet the perfect blogger to report and comment on your classroom activities!

Students can log in as your real or imaginary pet (or your school mascot) and post information about classroom activities, homework, discussions, etc.  Here’s an Education World lesson plan with some more ideas on this topic, including this:

By writing the blog from the pet’s or mascot’s viewpoint, you address a number of issues:

• Concerns over students’ online safety and privacy are lessened because no names are identified with the blog entries (all are signed by the animal).
• Upper elementary students can learn about point of view.
• The focus is shifted from the mundane (What’s interesting about a vocab test?) to the unique (How would a lizard react to our latest science experiment?), engaging students and hopefully prompting substantive writing.

This Bird Can Blog lesson plan at Education World  [Rubric for this lesson]

For help setting up a classroom blog or creating a login account for your classroom pet, email me.  Looking for a classroom pet?  Try this one. 

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Here are some ideas for using a blog with your students from TeacherFirst.com

Post a prompt

Put a biweekly writing prompt up on the blog and have your students respond to it by a certain day.  Ask them to also comment on one of their classmates ideas, drawing a name from a hat or rotating to be sure that all students receive a comment from someone. Foster process writing peer-editing by asking each student to make a suggestion for improvement to content and  mechanics (editing) of the other student’s submission.

The week in Review

Appoint a weekly blog team in your elementary classroom to write that week’s blog entry, describing the events of the week in Room XYZ. Invite moms and dads to comment and watch the excitement grow! Soon you will have students begging to write the summaries.

Respond to a reading

Practice good reading strategies and check comprehension by asking students to respond to an assigned reading, reflecting on how it applies to their own experience. For example, after reading a non-fiction piece about the McCarthy Era, students could tell about their own experiences with labeling.

Find the facts

Post a statement with no supporting facts. Ask students to find facts to support or refute the opinion, using links to reliable web sites and their own persuasive explanations. This could work well for environmental issues, political issues, or any topic that is debatable.

Critique a web site

Post a link to a web site related to a topic your are studying and invite students to give their personal evaluation: Does the site show bias? Does it seem well-researched? Is it a reliable source?

Comment on current events

Post a link to a current events story and ask students to comment on its implications in your local community or their own lives. Even young students can respond to stories from the local paper’s online pages.

 

The URL for all BCBE blogs start with http://apps.bcbe.org/blog… If your school uses the district website template, you can have a shorter and more memorable URL set up to take people directly to your blog.  Instead of http://apps.bcbe.org/blogName, your URL could be www.schoolurl.com/TeacherName. The real URL for our Instructional Technology blog is http://apps.bcbe.org/blogit but it can also be accessed at www.bcbe.org/blogIT.

Having your blog URL based on your school’s URL makes it easier for parents and students to remember it.  Let me know if you want to get this set up.  Email me at mdjohnson@bcbe.org.  Remember, this is only available if your school is using the district provided website template through School Insites. 

A blogroll is the list of links that appears on the sidebar of your blog.  By default, WordPress includes a short list of links to the developers of the program.  You’ve probably seen the names Mike (not me), Alex, Ryan, etc. on your site.  I suggest that you remove these links and use that space for something more useful. 

To remove these links, login and click on Links on the top menu.  Then you can click Delete on the left by each item.  If you need help with this, please let me know.

So, what could you put in your blogroll?  How about adding links to:

• Your school website
• The BCBE website
• Text book publisher websites
• BCBE Online Learning
• Websites with activities students can do that are related to your content area

What types of sites are you linking to in your blogroll?  Share them in the comments.

This the handout used in some of our blog training sessions.  It also contains info on a few other Web 2.0 topics.

Blog Training  Handout 

If you have any questions, please let me know.

This blog is for teachers who are using blogs in their classroom.  It is a place to share ideas, get help and show off what you’ve done!

Please register and participate