Chapter 8 Forum

You pose a great question. I would also like to know if elementary students were encouraged to blog this year. When I was principal at Drexel Elementary a few year back we had one of our 5th grade classrooms emailed students in another state. Of course, we were not allowed to have student emails so the teacher had to send them through her email. It was part of teaching letter writing lessons and students appreciated getting responses quicker than receiving them through the mail. Blogging of course takes it to a new level.

Starting last month I began a class blog.  So far the students have only blogged with others in our school but it has been great.  The students are extremely excited to blog and they visit the blog any chance they get.  I introduced the blog and reminded the students that they have to be safe when posting.  They can not use their last names or include any personal information.  I use edublogs.org and one of the features that I love is that I have to approve each post before it can me viewed on the blog...so if students write anything that they shouldn't, I can keep it from being seen by others.

The posts have been about what we are learning in class.  I include a link to a webiste that my students have to read in order to answer the blogs' question.  The students are reading and writing but don't complain about it...they are learning without even realizing it because I have make it fun and meaningful.  The questions are thought provoking and require my students' to use critical thinking skills.

They wanted to blog during spring break (that is how excited they are) and so I have a post about the recent events in Japan.  It is wonderful to see what my students are writing.  Many of them post several times and comment on other classmates posts.

My students and I love the class blog!

At the beginning of the year, I created a class website which is used for blogs, announcements, and photo albums compiled from academic and athletic events, as well as field trips and other special events.  The kids love the website, and the blogging has been an integral aspect.  Typically I will post a discussion question about once a week, and invite the students to answer the question, and sometimes even pose their own questions to my question.  My experience with the blog has been nothing but positive, it honestly seems to bring out the best in my students.  Blog entries are always kind and respectful, compliments are always in the mix.  Only occasionally do I find the “sup” comments, which are still harmless.  In terms of digital citizenship, I think the blogs are outstanding.  The fact that they are public (between students and parents) creates a situation where students want to represent themselves in the best way possible, which I believe will lead to positive digital habits.

The only drawback to this system is the fact that many of my students still don’t have internet access away from school.  The option that was given to them, was to come in and get on our class website before school, at lunch, or after school.  Although some students do utilize this option, some don’t.  The students who have internet access at home are definitely the kids who visit the class website most frequently. 

The students in my classroom did not participate in blogging this year. Many students still do not have internet access. This is a goal for me for next year.

unfortunately our students haven't had an opportunity to blog this year.

I am a bit confused by some of the comments I've read. We were told to wait until the district created an in district place to blog. This would guarantee a safe place for our fifth grader to blog. Research shows that blogging extends learning and kicks it up to using higher order thinking skills.

Although, at our school, I have not observed the the Fifth Grade stuedents blogging, I have noticed that the  teachers incooperated technology using student engagement. Our goal is to create the ideal situation where students will be teaching eachother and the teacher will facilitate the learning. A student centered curriculum  will allow students to work with peers utilizing blogs, wikis, websites for their lessons and presentations. We are in the beginning stages but headed in a positive direction.

This is a great goal for our teachers to utilize next year.  I do know that our librarian used it with some 5th grade classes and found it to be successful.  I know that my daughter has participated in 3 forums this school year.  She is in 3rd grade and she had three different assignments where she had to discuss the different structures of rocks, facts that she had learned about their new class pet, talking with her reading groups about the book "Wrinkle in Time."  Her teacher made it very clear that the students were to stay on topic and not use the time to chat to their friends.  As a parent, I saw a huge value in this in that my daughter was talking with her classmates after school hours, asked questions and received feedback on some of her statements.  Not only did she learn more about each topic, but she also learned internet etiquette and internet safety.  As a parent, I felt it was my responsibility to sit with her and guide her through the process if she came upon any questions.

I look forward to more of our students using this next year.

tried this on my class webpage but not too successful.  I don't think I really understood the webpage and how I was to use it.  I hope to be more successful next year.  I would like my students to use it often to ask questions and practice writing.  I am excited to see if I can make it happen.

It was exciting to hear about our elementary student's blogging. Surprisingly or maybe not surprisingly, the experience is similar to what is occurring at the secondary level. One of our most tech savvy teachers had students participate in a blog forum as part of their final. The teacher and students were both pleased with the result. One student commented- "this was the most fun final I have ever taken."  It is also bound to be quite a change as these younger students arrive hungry for these experiences, and we work to provide them in high school. ,

In our classroom we use schoology to blog.  A friendly, safe place for students to collaborate with school mates and teachers.  As for blogs, the essential questions are used to start class discussions.  Students are really engaged and are always reminding me that we need to blog.  It allows students to take ownership of what they learned, and gives them the opportunity to reflect on their classmates responses.  They are really into it.

I have read most of the posts about blogging. I see many of the problems are access to internet. If we can get all of our students on during school hours a blog could be used as the bellwork for the class. Instead of writing in a journal about what you read in the book yesterday have a blog question where students write the answer to a question about the book. Once we get projectors the blog could be projected onto the screen and the teacher have some students read their posts. While it would not be perfect it would be a great way for teachers to get their feet wet and help them start thinking about other ways it could be incorporated. It would be ideal for students to be able to reflect at home but with the availablity of internet so scarce, until that is addressed I would try to keep it in the classroom so that all students have the opportunity.

I did indeed practice blogging with our 5th graders as a part of our internet safety and ethics lesson. I used a Sunnyside classroom and we practiced posting and creating appropriate screen names together as part of our lesson-it showed me an immediate understanding on the students' part of what was appropriate-inappropriate, and the fact that I projected it on the screen and could actually delete a post if necessary (only one) brought the lesson home.

The great thing about the blog is that it gives you that immediate response, just as clickers do, and there's no hiding or passivity-if the laptop wasn't working (many weren't at the time-it was still early implementation), I could still send students over to a desktop to log-in and post.

Students can also do their own blogs in the Sunnyside classroom, if you want them to. They're still learning the netiquette. Wassup is a favorite salutation.

 

No one is blogging at my school. I want our 5th grade students to start blogging, but don't they need email accounts? Some of the 5th grade teachers are asking when we are going to be getting email for our students.  Reading most of your responses, it seems to me that some schools already have email accounts. If so, how do we get accounts for my school?

However, now that moodle is established in our district, our students can start blogging! The first step is training our teachers on how to use moodle. Secondly, getting the teachers to create a course and assignments. Thirdly, training our students on how to use moodle. Lastly, start blogging!