Implementing in the classroom

After reading many posts from my classmates, I see that we all are coming with a range of ideas and opinions about blogging in the classroom. For some, it seems like a great tool to encourage collaboration, writing, and problem solving. For others, it is not as beneficial for student achievement nor does it gain any new skills students are learning through other means of technology.
.
I know for me, the fact that it isn't necessarily embedded in our curriculum (and we are always in search for extra time) it can be difficult to implement this idea. So I set out to go look for those ideas... what have other teachers found when blogging with their students.

Here's an article I found that points out how blogging improves writing abilities.
http://www.edutopia.org/blog/blogging-in-21st-century-classroom-michelle-lampinen

The author states students show "improved skills transfer to formal work". This includes including textual evidence, providing quotes from the text. Hopefully students take these skills from blogging into their writing.

Also, students have found that blogging is less "painful". Probably because there is no real structure to blogging, nor actual "rules" for what is needs to look like. As one student pointed out, blogging "is a good way to have us write without it being formal or full of pressure. I also like the fact that I have control over what I write about, and that definitely makes the assignment easier." Shouldn't that be one of our first steps in grabbing students' attention for writing purposes?

I think about how I just completed this post. I didn't create a graphic organizer or outline to write. I just typed up my thoughts and already I have multiple paragraphs. I could see how promoting this type of writing may encourage students to love writing.

I also checked for possible examples of Blogs used by teachers and their students. Here is a link with some samples. Here you can see how teachers and students use this for sharing information, what they're learning in the classroom, discussing their ideas.

http://kidblogworkshop.weebly.com/sample-kidblogs.html

Kidblog.org (http://kidblog.org/home/) seems to be a popular site that teachers are using. I checked it out and saw that this is a free site that can be used as a platform for a classroom blog. Just like blogger, the site is easy for naviagtion, posting blogs, and designs. A teachers sets up a class site for the bog, and allows each student to have their own account and access to the site.

If there are any other ideas/sites for blogging... please share!

Fatima

Blogging Thoughts

I'm a huge reader, therefore I do enjoy reading different blogs that cover a variety of topics- eduaction, travel, food. I love how blogs can make EVERYONE a writer and share their thoughts and ideas. It's also an effective tool for communication. I have always wanted to start my own blog but having a mind full of thoughts always left me clueless as where to begin or what to focus on. With this class, I guess education is a good place to start since it's something I do for the majority of my week!

Setting up this blog for the first time required some clicking around, and naviagting through. But within 10 minutes, I was happy to see an actual post that looked like all the other blogs I've read! I played around with different designs and found it simple to change designs and layouts.