Wednesday, July 10, 2013
I am an elementary school librarian and have been thinking about how I would use a blog. For preschool thru 5th grade I would use it to keep parents informed of things going on in the library. I could post links to different websites about books, reading, and learning games. It could also be used to inform parents of community library happenings, and such,
For the upper grades, 4th and 5th, I think it would be wondering to tool to use to introduce them to blogging. In the book “Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms” it states that, “Posting to a Weblog can take many forms. Students can write about personal reactions to topics covered in class, post links, write reflectively, and summarize or annotate readings.”(Richardson, 2010) I have been looking at different books to use for a book discussion. I like the books by Carl Hiaasen, such as Chomp, Hoot and Flush for younger readers. They all have an environmental theme, and a lot of research ideas. I think I will use the blog like a discussing board, where I post a question and then each student has to respond to the question. They can post links, pictures, or reflections about the book as well. I will allow all of them to be author on the blog also. Once we get to the research phase, after we have read the book, they will post their research on the blog. According to Richardson, “blogs facilitate what I think is a new genre that could be called “collective writing”, a form that forces those who do it to read carefully and critically, that demands clarity and cogency in its construction, that is done for a wide audience , and that links to the sources of the ideas expressed.” (Richardson, 2010) This will require them to learn the research process, and to learn how to determine a reliable source. They will also have to respond to what their classmates write in response to their research.
I think this is a wonderful way to get students excited about writing. Especially when they know that not just the teacher, but their classmates and the world can see their posts. I believe this will be a major motivator. I cannot wait to try it this year, and will post how it goes.
Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
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I like your ideas BJ. One challenge that you may face is parents who may not access to a computer or the internet but want to be involved and know what is going on. How would you help in this situation? Another challenge may be that parents do not want their children's names posted online. Those students may have to post using pseudonyms in order for them to be bale to participate in the activity. Making sure that a consent form goes home giving the student permission to be working online may be another challenge and reassuring parents that their child would be monitored would be a way to overcome that challenge.
ReplyDeleteI am glad you asked about parents that do not have a computer, I had not considered that. To solve that problem I would send home a print out of the blog with posts, I could also give parents an opportunity to use the school computers. Thanks for bringing that uo!
DeleteI feel a blog is a great way to keep parents informed about the happenings at the school and events in the library. How would you plan to spread the word about your blog, and to gain followers?
ReplyDeleteI also really like the idea of using the blog as a discussion board, sort of like an online literacy circle. You can post questions and get all students perspectives on a topic, rather than just a few students participating which can happen in an in class discussion.
Just like we saw in our learning resources, a blog like this is a great way to get students enthused about writing. Their audience is no longer just their teacher, it is their classmates and anyone else that visits the blog. Therefore you would assume students would take greater pride in their work.
Kevin,
DeleteTo get the word out to parents I would send a note home, as well as put a link on the school website. I also think if I get the students interested in visiting the blog they will encourage their parents to visit it as well! Thanks!
Hello Mrs. Fontalbert,
ReplyDeleteI really like the idea of having students post their reflections to topics that are discussed in the classroom. I would just make sure to set guidelines for these posts. Perhaps a form of rubric can be set up for students to understand what is considered acceptable on your blog. This may prevent a student from posting a reflection that is completely random, regarding something else that may have happened that day, and does not relate to the material being discussed. Or you can introduce blogging to your students by having them create their own blogging rubric by posting suggestions.
I think the idea of having students post their research about certain topics is also a great idea. However, I fear that students may be tempted to cut and paste material that has already been published by others. Perhaps there can be some way to use some form of filtering program like "Turn It In" prior to posting their research.
Thank you for sharing your ideas & happy blogging!
Rudy,
DeleteI understand your concern about students cutting and pasting published work. I do lessons with the students concerning plagiarism, and plan on beefing up those lessons before we start this project. I do like your idea of using something like "turnitin". Thanks!