I have been wondering for a while how I could utilize a blog within my classroom. Being that I teach all subjects in a second grade classroom, I don't think my students would be able to contribute to a blog, at least not in the beginning of the year. Since a blog "engages readers with ideas and questions and links" (Richardson, pg 18), I continued to think of how the classroom itself might benefit from a something like this, and I came up with a few ideas.
My first idea, is to set the blog up for parents. The school district in which I teach, has very involved parents. I think that I could set up a blog in order to communicate with parents, and for the parents to communicate with one another. In this type of blog, I would set up questions and concerns that deal with classroom issues, decisions, and projects. Parents could communicate with me about something that may not be working with homework, or a strategy that helped their particular child that may help another child. Also, in this type of parent blog, I could share students work with the parents of the class. Since it would be primarily for this group of parents, and with parent permission of course, I could attach voice threads, power points and more for the parents to view of what their child has made. One other item for a parent blog, would be to coordinate "elementary" type items, for example holiday celebrations, field trips, and any parent that would like to come to read or speak to the class. In creating this type of blog, I could connect it to my school's website. Like many school websites, it is not "updated on a regular basis" (Richardson, pg 25), so attaching my blog to the site would ensure that at least my site in particular would stay current and active for the parents.
My other though for a blog for my classroom would be for other elementary teachers. We could use the blog as a communication tool and to share ideas, lesson plans, strategies, and more. I could post a question for the week about behavior plans, for example, and invite other teachers to share their strategies and ideas. Also, we could share items and websites that we have found that work with different curricular areas. Often teachers are willing to help one another and to share what is working for them, while also looking for ideas as to how to teach a specific skill, or to find more information to support a topic that they are teaching to their class. In communicating with other teachers, it does not just have to be with those within my school, but it could be with those in another country. Technology has the ability to "shrink space" (Thornburg, 2010)and allow us the ability to share ideas from all over the world.
My last idea would only work more towards the end of the year, most likely. By the end of the year, most second grade students would be able to answer some short comprehension questions or opinion questions in a blog type setting with some help. I could pose questions, such as what they thought of the book, or to post a summary of their favorite book. I don't think, at least not right now, that I could have the second graders answer too many questions, or too long of a question, but I am certainly willing to give the short blog questions a try with this group of students I have. Then, I could share the site with their parents and teachers for the next year, so that they can have an idea of how the child is thinking and has progressed throughout the year.
Being in a second grade classroom, I don't want to overwhelm my students, but I also do want to deprive my students of the technology that we all love so much.
References:
Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
Thornburg, D. (2010). Technology and Society. Laureate Education: video.
One suggestion I would make would be to post some of their drawings and their writing. Therefore, you are exposing them to blogs and showing off their work as well. If anything, I truly feel this would motivate them to continue doing a great job. I enjoyed reading about your other ideas as well, however, I feel that showcasing their work would be a great start to getting them involved and exposed.
ReplyDeleteI think that all of your ideas sound great. I have had a parent communication blog for several years, but it is mostly just me giving the parents information. I love the idea of it being an open-forum for parents to have discussions.
ReplyDeleteI agree that it would be hard to implement blogging with 2nd graders. I feel like there are so many great ideas out there, but right now my students (also 2nd graders) have a hard time stringing multiple sentences together! I think the best thing to do is to post on that parent communication blog as a class. Let your students watch as you type about upcoming field trips, etc., so if you decide to let them try a little blogging in the spring they have had a good amount of modeling and exposure.
Colleen,
ReplyDeleteI would love to post some of the students drawings and writings on a blog site. However, I have not sat down to teach myself how to add them in yet. I don't think it can be that hard, and when I can find the time, I will make sure to figure it out. Thanks for the suggestion.
Mrs. Zade,
ReplyDeleteI am glad to hear your comments. Right now, I am just working toward having my students remember their capitals and periods when they are writing. We have not even worked on stringing our sentences together. I think they are almost to the point where they might understand what a paragraph is though.
It is harder using some of the technology with second grade, because we are still in the developmental stages. I do think, that by the end of the year, most, not all, of my students would be able to post something on a blog either individually or as a group.
Thanks!!
Melissa,
ReplyDeleteI think that starting with a parent blog to provide information and resources is a solid beginning point. Richardson (2010) stresses, at first “don’t worry about collaborations or conversations at the outset. Just get used to how it feels to communicate information to your students online, and let your students get used to consuming that information in a different form” (p. 45). For second graders, I am sure that this would apply equally to parents as well as students.
Since I teach first and second graders, I empathize with your concerns about students’ writing abilities and blogging. In order to help students practice writing conventions and sentence development, as well as model the blogging process, perhaps, at the end of each day, you could compose a one or two sentence “overview” (such as “Today we learned …) as a class. You could be the scribe and “think aloud” about the process as you type up the sentences that the students dictate. At the end of the week, these sentences could be combined to be used as a blog post to update parents about classroom events. This would serve the dual purpose of keeping parents updated about classroom learning as well as modeling blogging to prepare students for eventually taking over this posting themselves.
Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
Using a blog as a way to communicate with other elementary teachers is a great idea. I have a similar goal for my blog. I would eventually like to have a blog for my entire seventh grade social studies department, in which our students could interact with one another, but my colleagues and I could also share ideas. One thing you mention that I like is that we could expand this beyond a grade level or even school, and possibly communicate with educators all over the world. There are so many creative and terrific teachers that are willing to share ideas. Blogging seems like a perfect way to foster collaboration amongst educators.
ReplyDeleteMelissa
ReplyDeleteYour idea of using blogs to foster collaboration with parents and other teachers is an interesting approach. This will surely help you to come up with other ideas that can enhance the learning experience for all your students. This is definitely one of the main intents of an educational blog.
For your parent blog, you may find that some parents might be hesitant to participate in your community of bloggers because of their level of advancement with technology usage. You could therefore invite all the parents to a class workshop where you introduce them to your idea and the possibilities of blogging in teaching and learning. This demonstration will help them to understand and appreciate your plan and thereby develop the willingness to become a part of this learning community.
Though you were looking forward to having your students engaged in blogs by the end of the year, I think starting with them from early in the term will prove fruitful. The parents can also serve as useful resources in this case as they can help their children to better utilize this tool. This generation is naturally drawn to technology and therefore with the necessary guidance they will be able to use it effectively. You could start out by allowing students to introduce themselves to their classmates on the blogs and this information could be shared with parents. You could then have them respond to specific points about a topic you are exploring. This could be done once per week. You will be amazed to see how well they can use the blogs by the end of the semester. Put them to the test.