I found a really interesting article at http://www.education-world.com/a_tech/tech/tech217.shtml. The article is titled, Blogging? It’s Elementary, My Dear Watson! It was perfect for me since it discussed using blogs in grades as low as kindergarten.
The article begins by defining blogging for those readers who may be unfamiliar with the term. It then goes in to discuss the benefits of blogging. It notes that students quality of writing and their interest greatly improves when their work is being put online for an actual audience. The article gives examples of a few Blogs that are from fourth grade classrooms.
My favorite parts of the article were the safety tips it gave you on implementing blogging into your classroom. I thought the one program, Blogmeister, which is a blogging tool that allows you as the teacher to create student accounts on your blog. The students are able to freely add their own entries, but they send them to the teacher to approve before publishing them. I thought this was a great idea because the students are able to get their thoughts across, but as the teacher you are still able to keep an eye on what is being said.
I also enjoyed the idea of KidzBlog because it used a drawing tool which I could use for my kindergarten students.
I think the article brought up a lot of interesting ideas and things that you should check out if you are interested in incorporating blogging into your classroom.
4 comments:
After reading your review of the article, I had to read it myself and I really enjoyed it. Before this class, I would've never thought of using a blog - personally or with my students. That article really broke down the benefits of blogging and how to implement the tools. Do you think you will be using blogs in your classroom?
I would really like to incorporate blogging into my classroom. I want to look further into the KidzBlog. I feel that that would be best for the age group that I work with. I think it would just be another way for them to practice expressing themselves and their opinions.
The article you found had a lot of good ideas on how to incorporate blogging into the classroom. Being a fourth grade teacher I am very interested in publishing my students' wiritng onto a blog. This will make it easy to be accessed and viewed by other 4th graders around the world. It is also a way for students to relect on their writing. In addition, I also think my students woud enjoy kidzblog. The will be able to add artistic flar to their work.
Tamra,
I liked your comments on this article relating to blogging in the elementary grades. Since I teach fifth grade I found it interesting that it allows the students to voice their opinion on what and how they are learning. I believe the best resource for students is communication with the teacher. The article you found highlights that fact and that students are in the 21st century where technology is their source of communication. I agree with you on the Blogmeister, because it is important to allow the students to be creative with their thoughts, while also keeping things under your supervision. The one thing that came to mind when reading the article and your comments was the reasons why it is not being used more often. I think the main reason for this is due to some teachers not wanting to break their teaching routine which they have developed over the years. I think school districts need to make it more part of their district wide policy so that teachers are educated on the use, benefits, and success that it has for their students. Overall, I am excited about the ideas and hope to see more teachers utilizing blogs in their classrooms.
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