thinkbrit

world-shaker:

We started off much the same as last year’s grade 3 class, with one important difference: we focused on the importance of quality commenting before we gave the students their usernames and passwords for the class blog. We spent several lessons exploring our blogging buddies blogs, learning how to write an appropriate and fair comment, and building our understanding of blogging as conversation.

Interestingly, as soon as this class got started with their collaborative blog, more and more teachers have been asking me to help them set up a blog with their class. Just this week, I helped another fourth grade teacher, Kristen, set up her class blog and was amazed at how quickly her students were able to pick up the basics. At this point, I’ve got the introduction to blogging organized into five lessons (slightly revamped from last year’s version):

This is one of those blog posts that only comes around every once in awhile. It has everything: Video support, detailed explanations of their set up (with links to previous articles that go into even more detail), and even lesson breakdowns. Even if you don’t teach at the Elementary level, there’s some outstanding information here.

Gotta save this for myself. Totally applicable. Love it when that happens!

world-shaker:

A really fascinating overview of some of the challenges and solutions in blogging assignments. Here’s an excerpt:

In his article, “Instructional Blogging: Promoting Interactivity, Student-Centered Learning, and Peer Input,” Stuart Glogoff relays student feedback after the use of instructional blogs in one of his classes. One student reported that reading about new subjects via the blogging format was enjoyable; she found that researching the topics to post on the class blog was helpful to her overall learning experience. The student, however, complained that, “the posts were few and far between.” She expressed further disappointment over the fact that none of her posts received comments, a complaint echoed amongst other students who took the survey

In order to make instructional blogging more effective, Glogoff gave blogging assignments that required each student to post entries and comment a certain number of times on the work of others. Afterward, students reported general increases in their sense of community. They also reported greater satisfaction with the overall blogging experience. Others said the entire blogging and peer-reviewing process not only helped them understand the course material but also provided a better avenue for helping each other learn through conversation.

This couldn’t have been posted at a more fortuitous time. While this is information for older students, we are just getting our 3rd graders set up on kidblogs, and this information is interesting to see/have. I wonder what the effects will be for our 3rd graders.