Currently, I am an elementary substitute teacher; consequently, I currently would not use a blog with students. Therefore, I will base my blog and discussion on the grade level that I would like to teach – 3rd grade.
I would use the blog to have students respond to literature. Since our district does not provide enough computers for each student, I would use this as a workstation that is integrated into my reading/writing block. Most of the classrooms that I am familiar with in my district have 2-3 student computers per classroom, so I feel that students could rotate into the workstation once or twice a week, as well as having the ability to post from outside of the classroom.
At this workstation, students would post a blog about the book they are independently reading. I would integrate the mini-lessons – albeit setting, characters, main idea, plot, whatever we are concentrating on – into the workstation as to what students would blog about.
Doing so would allow me to respond to students to probe deeper, making them think critically about their responses. It would give me artifacts to demonstrate their growth and would allow feedback and conversation from both within and outside of the classroom.
Currently, my daughter (a 6th grader) reads every night and has to write a letter weekly to her teacher about what she is reading. This strategy is common in our district with 3rd grade and up. By replacing writing letters in a journal with blogging, I have a greater opportunity to respond quicker and more often, and students have a greater audience from which to receive feedback.
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8 comments:
Your blog having students posts journal type entries is a great idea for the young people. Could another idea be to post book reports or review of the books that they read? They could have their own Book Review and recommendations.
I had not thought of doing a blog as a workstation, but that is a great idea! I teach first and I think that students would really enjoy adding a few sentences to a blog or commenting to respond to a question.
I also like the idea of blogging as a word station. I think that blogging can really help with writing and reading skills. Also typing skills. As the technology becomes more and more advanced it is important that students know how to type. I find a lot of my 8th grade students are still very slow typers, and do not use the correct form, so every bit of practice helps.
I think your idea of posting responses to books at a workstation is fabulous! This way it can be monitored and you get instant feedback from the students! I just started doing a thing with my students where they have to write a story using their vocabulary words from the week as well as utilizing some of the reading comprehension skills and adding them in. This could be done in the form of a blog! Students would love to respond on the computer.
Great idea about using vocabulary and writing skills to incorporate in their blogs. I also love the idea of using blogs as a way to right book recommendations. I am not a huge fan of book reports, but writing a recommendation that requires a "blurb" that is not copied from the back of the book would be a great way to see if students are understanding what they are reading. You could actually incorporate any reading/writing skill that you are working on into the requirement for a blog.
I think this is a great idea to get students using computers, technology and blogging at an early age. Maybe if we teach them how to use the internet and blogging the correct way, we can avoid safety issues for the children. The internet is a big and scary place where kids can get into trouble. My only question for your idea would be, are students at the 3rd grade level going to be able to post questions and comments or will this be too much for them? I teach high school so I'm a little unfamiliar with the progression at the elementary level. Would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks!
I think that if I teach students starting at beginning of the year they would be able to. At the beginning I would model, ask them for input and ideas and slowly relinquish the responsibility to them. Of course, some students may be ready sooner than others. Maybe a rubric grading scale, with examples of each grade, for using the blog would be appropriate and help students understand my expectations. However, I believe that I need to set high expectations of my students. Imagine the type of critical thinkers we would have by the tim they reached high school!
As a reading teacher, I think that using a blog for the students to respond to literature is a great way to motivate them and allow them to express their ideas. In my classroom, I have two student computers. Allowing this to be a center is a good way to allow every student to get a turn.
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