All our classes have class blogs and we have been dabbling with Student blogging for a few years. I began the students with KidBlogs and think it is a wonderful introduction – very easy to manage from a teachers perspective and easy to use from a student’s view. There are enough features to introduce them to many aspects of blogging.
This year, I feel we are ready to move on and I am introducing the students to Edublogs (via Global2) and using the Student Blogging Challenge as a catalyst.
I asked for volunteers to be accept the challenge as I felt that mandating it would be too much and a bit unfair to some students. I am thrilled with the first response and will begin working with the first group of volunteers next week, hoping their activity might inspire a few uncertain ones.
I am doing this as I believe that blogging has so many benefits for students. When blogging,
- we create an audience for our work and writing and thereby inspire a quest for excellence
- we can gather ideas from many more people than just our small class or school
- we can share the wonderful things we know
- we feel good about ourselves as we get positive feedback about the things we do
- we let our families know more about what we do at school
- we get feedback by wonderful comments that help us think more about what we do and sometimes why we do them
- we interact with our readers via comments and practice appropriate language skills for online interactions
- we create a wonderful positive digital footprint
- we model and practice Cybersafe behaviours
More to follow as the challenge begins.
Visual http://www.flickr.com/photos/langwitches/4343432434/sizes/s/in/set-72157625878283389/
Hi Celia
Great to see your students volunteering in the Student Blogging Challenge! I’m sure they will love it. I was a Blog Commenter for this challenge two years ago and it was one of the best things I’ve done! I learnt so much from reading and commenting on student blogs and was amazed by their capabilities. It was also rewarding to get to know the students over the duration of the Challenge and in some cases beyond that time. I’m hoping later this year to work with a small group of Year 5 students to do the September Challenge (fingers crossed!)
I’m starting the class blogging journey with about ten of our staff this Friday morning at 8am…”The Early Birds” is about to be launched!!
Good luck with you student bloggers…
Kim 🙂
As a teacher of first time blogger challengers, I am excited, motivated and enervated by their journey. We wonder have we had any influence on their pathway?!!! We hope we have modelled well?!!! But most of all, the breathtaking anticipation of opening each new post tells me we are definitely on a journey together….a journey I personally hope will reveal the students surpassing the teacher!!
Isn’t that why we teach?