Thing 2: Student Blogging and Writing

1. Discuss the resources you explored in this lesson.

I was able to explore several resources including examples of classroom blogs as well as sites giving advice about how, where, and why to blog. One thing that stood out to me was the difference in approaches that teachers/schools have taken with respect to administrative regulation of the class blogs by teachers. In "Blog Case Study: Student Run Newspaper" for example, an international school in Zurich allows students full autonomy over the content of their newspaper. Their thinking behind this was that giving students complete control over their newspaper would lead to higher levels of responsibility and self regulation". On the other hand, Paul Wagner's blog posts explain that benefits of using sites like Weebly and Kidblog because teachers have control over what is posted. Being in a middle school setting where students show a lack of understanding about internet safety and appropriate use of online forums, I have found that most teachers tend to lean toward total adult control.  (i.e. using Lightspeed to block sites, turning off commenting in google classroom, etc...) I plan to check out more resources from this lesson's list to see how teachers have approached classroom blogging by making students part of the initial decision making process around what is acceptable and what is off limits.  


2. Do you see value in the use of blogging with your students?

I can see the value of blogging with my students, especially in our ELA course where we have a large number of reluctant and flat-out unwilling writers. Many students are frustrated when asked to write one to two paragraphs. I think that the immediate publishing of their work would make at least some of them care more about it while feeling motivated to complete written assignments. 


3. How might you use blogs to enhance or transform a student writing         project?

At the moment my students are about to begin a unit with a culminating newspaper project.  Normally, they will use an online template that I send them through google classroom for their newspaper pages. However, looking at some of the resources here has made me wonder if a blog would be a better way to be able to share their work with a larger audience. 

4. Other thoughts about student blogging?

Another idea that occurred to me while reading through the resources was to create a blog at our school for incoming students entering 6th grade or any students new to our middle school. Our school is very large and has a number of internal norms and resources which new kids need to be oriented to. For example, it might be nice to do a video blog explaining where the nurse and clinic are, how to sign up for the clinic, and the benefits of using this service at school. We could give parents the link to this blog in the summer before school starts so they could explore it with their kids. All of this could be posted by students who have gone through the "new kid" experience before.