This is my very first blog! In my 6th grade class, I teach the character trait risk taker. If I am not a risk taker myself, how can I teach kids to take on this role? Now that I see the benefit of a blog, such an amazing communication tool, my head is swimming with new ideas for my students to begin using this tool to learn literacy as well as 21st century skills!
My 6th grade language arts classroom is a perfect place for students to begin learning the tools needed to become contributors in this ever changing world. My students respond daily to a writing prompt that I post on the board. They already have the skills to appropriately respond with paper and pencil to prompts given. A first step to teach my students how to blog would be to begin posting my prompts as a blog posts. The students would then get to learn how to comment by typing their usually written responses. Being on the internet, getting to do the same task in a different way, will enhance my writing routine by providing the confidence students will need to begin and the motivation of learning something new. Students will become better editors of their own sentence fluency, mechanics, and organization, as blogs are posted for all to see. Every day students will have an audience, so I believe they will write with more voice and passion! Content objectives are being met (writing for a purpose) while students get to practice reading other comments for meaning. They will be excited to receive comments from others, which will deepen their perspectives. Communicating through written posts is an important skill students in this technological environment should possess. All student work will be located in one location…under each blog’s prompt posting! I cannot wait to begin!
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When I read your blog, all I could think about is how much that matched your personality. If you werent a risk-taker, you would be nothing like you are now. I am also a risk-taker and I am proud of it! :D
ReplyDeleteHi Tianna,
ReplyDeleteI really like the idea of using a blog for your writing prompts so that the students feel like they have an actual audience. One question - do your students have this access to computers every day in class? If I want a classroom set of computers, I have to sign them out is advance, and there are only two sets of laptops, so it can get a little crazy at times. Sometimes we have such great ideas, but the availability of resources really gets in the way! Maybe if you do not always have this access, you could just pick one day of the week that becomes "blog day", and the students know what they are doing every time "blog day" comes. Could be something interesting...
It sounds like your students have the writing skills they’ll need to easily transition into your daily writing prompt blog, which is a natural extension of their already solid routine. One potential difficulty I see with your idea is in the frequency of their required responses. If I’ve understood you correctly, you would like to post a writing prompt every day (or every day that they have your lesson?). My concern is that with such frequent required postings, your students might not feel they have the time to thoughtfully read through their fellow students’ comments and respond to them. As the “authentic audience” is key to the blogging experience, it will be important to plan sufficient time for the reading and responding parts of the process. I would suggest putting one writing prompt per week onto your blog at the start, so that you can get a feeling for how much time they’ll need, and they can get used to the new format. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteOh I think we had a little confusion. I thought you were saying that you had daily writing prompts and that you wanted your students to do them on the computer instead. I agree with you that it might not be beneficial to be giving blogging topics everyday as they would not get as well-quality of an experience.
ReplyDeleteTianna,
ReplyDeleteI think that introducing the students to blogs is an great idea. I think that the students should know about the different aspects of technology. Will the blogs be completed in class? You may have some students that may not have computer access outside of school.
The blogs will be completed in class using our mobile computer lab, which has a computer for each child to use. Every student has a computer to use every day. I am in a grant program for my district that has provided technology for students to use to create a 21st century classroom. I feel very lucky to have this accessibility for the students to use technology every day. If I did not have this kind of access, I would love the idea of a "blog day" (Nowakowski, 2009). That would definitely be a great suggestion for teachers who run into the scheduling problem for computer labs.
ReplyDeleteTsenala had a great suggestion that I had not yet thought of. I would like to allow students the opportunity to read other postings and comment on each other's work, so I need to have responding to prompt days and commenting days. Thank you for the insight!