I work in a primary school with students in grades K-2. So many of the great resources and ideas out there are for upper elementary, middle, and high school students. At first, I though it would not be possible for my young learners to fully incorporate blogs. I thought I would have to begin with more basic skills (i.e. having students comment on another blog).
Then I found Mrs. Wideen's Blogging Maniacs. Here, Mrs. Wideen has set up a class blog with her 1st and 2nd grade students through a resource called KidBlog. One of my students recently told me about KidBlog, so I decided to look it up myself. It's a great kid-friendly blogging tool, and best of all, it's FREE! Just looking at some of the individual posts gives the reader a great idea of how blogs are used in the classroom. There are a cluster of student posts about deserts, so I'm assuming that was a prompt students answered. However, there are other posts as well. One student posted about a bracelet she made in a rainbow loom. Another posted about something he had done in MineCraft. My favorite post, however, can be found here. This student dictated his plan to stay calm at recess, and the response was posted to his blog. While he has no comments, it can be assumed that everyone in his class has access to this post. What a great idea to get students involved in supporting this student! Now, when he has a great day at recess (which at this point is probably not the norm), students can celebrate with him and congratulate him on the use of his strategy. This is SO much more reinforcing than other strategies. The classroom teacher also has her own blog and a class twitter account. According to her blog, Mrs. Wideen is proud of having a classroom without walls, and this is evidenced by the fact that I have access to her blog and feel like I am getting to know her students.
Mrs. Wideen was mentioned in another blog post on Edutopia that I found through a google search (Introducing Social Media to Elementary Students). This post summed up many of the struggles with implementing blogging with our youngest learners. I especially liked the point the author made about "social media" in our time. She writes:
If we honestly think about it, we were all taught the "social media" of our time in early elementary school. Remember the friendly letter? How about thank you notes? Telephone etiquette? In early grades, none of us were expected to master these skills independently, but they were integrated into our curriculum so that effective social behavior could be modeled at a young age.
This is a GREAT point about social media. While few of us were actually writing letters in elementary school, we all learned how to do so. Students still learn to write friendly letters in primary grades, but what are they more likely to need to know how to do? Write a letter? Or read and write to a blog?
There's a great deal to be discussed with respect to this particular blog post. I might even continue discussing it in my next post. If you have the chance, skim through it and let me know what you think in the comments below! Got additional ideas for blogging with the little ones? Share it with a comment!
3 comments:
Juliana,
Wow, after reading your blog I had to smile because I totally just blogged about the same exact blog for kids, Kidblog. I thought this was a great SAFE site to use in the classroom.
You bring up a great question about learning to write a letter vs. blogging. I think both of these are very important and neither should be left out of instruction. I believe there is a time for both of these to be taught. They can be taught in different context of language arts. Students are going to need to know how to write a letter when they get older and need to communicate with businesses or apply for jobs so this could be taught for that purpose. Blogging is also an important skill to have in this generation. I think the teacher could make it known the purposes of writing handwritten letters and blogs then the students will be able to understand that both skills are important to have.
As for additional ideas to blog with little ones, I know one thing they are very good at is sharing their opinion. You could have an author study and have the students blog about the author and/or books to share their thoughts. They can respond to each other and ask questions. This will allow them to defend their own opinions but also to open their ideas to others views.
Juliana,
I wanted to also say what a great post! You added some fabulous resources that I definitely plan on taking the time to explore further. Both you and Lea discussed the differences between formal and informal writing, this is actually a standard in fourth grade common core where students basically need to understand who the intended audience is, and how their writing should be presented. I do agree that both need to be exposed so that students when getting to older grade levels can understand the difference and when it is appropriate to use either.
I love Lea's idea for creating a discussion board or blog about books that students love to read. In my teammates classroom, she has a bulletin board designated for students to post information about their favorite book that they are reading right now. What a wonderful way to incorporate technology! You could have a separate board designated for favorite books and students could post in this board at any time with a book they would love to recommend to their peers.
You both bring up great points about writing! Kendal, I love how you connected it back to common core standards. While it may not be "required" for these young students, it's important to expose them to it well before fourth grade!
I also love the idea for a book blog! I know our reading specialist has done that before with students. I also liked the idea about using a bulletin board and having students actually post their own information. I know that's the low-tech version of a blog, but it exposes them to the idea of posting information and discussing it.
Thanks! :)
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