I am very interested in how you all are using blogging with your students. Obviously a lot of student blogs are protected so that strangers like me cannot peek in. But please, oh please if you would let me take a look at some student blogging that would be great!
I started at this website and just listened to podcast about 2nd graders blogging but I still have these questions:
Does each student have their OWN blog?
Or is it one blog and all the students are administrators and can post?
Do students create actual posts or comment on a teacher prompt?
What are your different categories?
Do the students have specific titles they always post under or do they make up titles?
I am sure I can figure all this out once I see a couple real examples. Please!!!!
http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=56473
Here are a few to get you started from Blogmeister 🙂
http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=51141
http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=49089
http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=12433
http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=1638
http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=1337
http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=70735
Kathy’s is my favourite.
I was using it as a journal for literature. Go to lordofthebutchers.blogspot.com and then click on the kids’ names on the right hand side. Let me know what you think! mjb0123@yahoo.com
What can I say? THANK YOU for your quick response! Since these are student blogs if you want me to take the addresses off I will. I just “assumed” I could post these comments. Let me know! I will take a look.
Melinda,
I am the library media specialist at Branson Elementary. I am also the eMINTS trainer for our district (side note – I trained Chip his first year in eMINTS – tell him hi from Cindy). I have taught several of my teachers this year about blogging, and many of them used blogs with their students this year. They mainly used them for literature response activities. You can check out an example of one of my third grade teachers at http://www.vposse.blogspot.com/. I have enjoyed listening to your podcast and reading your principal blog. I have been trying to convince my principal to blog, so maybe yours will inspire him. I do a podcast with my 4th grade library students. It has book reviews, author interviews, etc. You can check it out at http://www.branson.k12.mo.us/elementary/podcast/index.htm. I hope these give you some additional ideas.
Cindy Matzat
If I hadn’t realized the benefits of blogging I sure do now! The response to this has been amazing. Cindy, Chip is a chicken to post to this blog. He thinks it is only a “principal” blog. I am going to have him check out all these comments from teachers so he feels really bad!
Love your book club blog! I posted a comment. If it scares your teachers off you don’t have to post it.
Your principal is aware of my blogging. I shared it with him a couple months ago so if you tell him you have been reading my blog he will know what you are talking about and that will light a fire under him.:):)
Great podcast too by the way!
Oi, achei teu blog pelo google tá bem interessante gostei desse post. Quando der dá uma passada pelo meu blog, é sobre camisetas personalizadas, mostra passo a passo como criar uma camiseta personalizada bem maneira. Até mais.
Melinda,
I teach in Branson with Cindy Matzat. I just finished teaching 2nd grade for the last 3 years and will be teaching 4th grade next year. I am an eMINTs4all teacher (trained by Cindy) and used a blog with my 2nd grade kids last year. We blogged about reading and science, and also about some retirees in our district. I used Edublogs because of its security features. I set up each post and the kids commented individually. Of course, as I’m writing this, edublogs is undergoing maintenence. So, you can try to access it via my website: http://www.branson.k12.mo.us/school_links/primary/gonest/students.htm
I used my guided reading/centers time for kids to comment to the blog.
Melinda: I have a few classroom blog links on http://teachdigital.pbwiki.com/blogging, but you may have even better suggestions in the comments you’ve already received. Dean Shareski did a great series of interviews last year with teachers using web 2.0 tools, and one of the best that focused on classroom blogging was his interview with Clarence Fisher. Clarence is in Canada and I think some of what he’s done with kids might be too open for conservative schools and communities in the US right now, but it is GREAT stuff. I recommend your teachers start out with a Class Blogmeister account. (It’s free.) They can use blogger, but Blogmeister is setup just for educators. It lets individual students have their own blogs, and the teacher moderates everything. I think it is important for students to be able to initiate their own posts and not just comment on teacher posts. They can set their own categories. I think it is best when students respond to some prompts, but also are encouraged to write on topics they choose for free writing. Try to add a ClustrMap to your Blogmeister site, that gives students a nice visual picture of where people live who are reading their class blog. Then partner up with another classroom in another state or country whose students are blogging, and get the students responding to each other. Clarence’s thoughts on how eventually the teacher seems to be standing in the way of the conversations between the kids (in that interview with Dean) are very insightful on this topic. Hope this helps.