What's Your Story? Blogging for Everyone - KIDS VERSION

Let's start at the very beginning...a very good place to start.  

https://www.flickr.com/photos/kendallkaos/2330888410

No, but really, today we will talk about blogging, for your students and for yourself.  Let's start with the students.  Let's talk about: 

• what are some platforms your students can use 
• why would you use it in the classroom with your students
• how can you use it with your students
• what are some ideas that you can take back and use on Monday...or Tuesday, we're flexible

PLATFORMS

screen shot from Edublog's website

Just like with everything else, blogging platforms are always changing.  Currently, Edublog has made student blogging completely free.  I will admit that when I taught in CCSD, Edublog was blocked but that may have changed.  It was also not free. Like I said before, things change and with technology, they change quickly.  It would be easy to find out if Edublog is blocked and it may be easy to get it unblocked. What I am seeing is a lot of options that make class blogging possible. You can have a "class", there are privacy settings to keep student blogs safe, and you have the ability to track student posts...to name a few.  

By Google (https://www.blogger.com/) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

If you are using Google at your school, you can also turn on Blogger.  Each student has their own blog built into GSuite.  You don't have all of the control that you do with Edublog, but there are work arounds.  For example, each time a student posts, they could turn that into an assignment in Classroom or fill out a form with link.  That would make it easier for you to view their blogs, as opposed to spending time just searching.  With Blogger, I have heard tell that you can also limit the posts to viewable only on your domain.  So that's a nice little bonus.  

Kidblog is the blogging platform that I have used with my students for years.  Granted at the time I started (yup, that old) Kidblog was free.  Unfortunately, it is not free anymore.  Fortunately, (for me) my school pays for it.  Blogger has a lot of the fantastic features that Edublog has; moderation, publishing statistics, and privacy settings.  It also has some option to connect with Google.  With Kidblog, you have to make that judgement call if it's worth the money, is it worth the time to write a grant, etc.  For many of our teachers, it was worth it, so our school invested in it.  

https://www.flickr.com/photos/wfryer/8478930729

The last option I have, but that doesn't mean there aren't other ones out there, is Weebly.  Weebly is a website where you can build your own website, for free.  One of the page styles that is available is a blog.  You can create a class webpage and include a blog or build it as ONLY a blog.  In order for Weebly to stay free, the one account would have to be under your name.  So you wouldn't be able to manage a class and their own individual blogs.  However, you could have individual students post daily.  It would just depend on how you want to approach blogging.  Which we will be talking about shortly!  WIN!

WHY WOULD YOU USE IT?

Blogging just like everything should not be "over done".  Right?  Everything in moderation. However, you want your student to practice writing skills.  You want your students to practice typing skills.  Blogging at its most basic function, are those 2 things combined.  

I have a friend who is super tech excited.  She teaches 2nd grade.  We've been in school 7 weeks (5 weeks when I'm writing this) and we just met and chatted briefly about Kidblog.  She was SO excited at the end of last year about the fact that her 2nd graders could get on and post a blog!  It was the best thing since sliced bread...well maybe not THAT exciting, but still pretty amazing.  She wanted her 2nd graders to get on right away this year.  As soon as possible.  However, when we chatted, she had decided to hold off.  Before I could even ask, she said that she wanted them to do a little more writing on paper first.  Essentially, they weren't ready to be online writers yet when they were still learning to be on paper writers.  Regardless of whether I agree or not, and I'm not telling, I cannot argue with her logic for her class.  

My point being, look at your class...does getting online and writing make sense for them?  Are they writing in interactive journals?  Are they writing on loose leaf paper (those used to be such magic words)?  Are they writing on handouts?  And what are they writing?  Are they writing letters?  Are they writing stories?  Are they writing answers?  Are they writing jokes? 

And my last question: who are they writing to?  We all know that students will typically meet a higher bar if they are working for an audience other than their typical audience.  It's just like with everything else.  If it's always for the teacher...it gets old.  With blogging, they have the opportunity to write for each other too.

And now my last why.  With blogging, because the audience is more than just the teacher, you have the opportunity to reinforce the formal writing expected in school, but you also have the opportunity to teach that more informal, but still correct (lol ur not gonna be bloggin' like this ru?), writing. Along with that informal writing to an audience of peers comes the ability to guide them through appropriate commenting, digital citizenship, peer editing, etc.  There are so many avenues that you could take to have the kids write for each other and analyze for each other as well.  

HOW CAN YOU USE IT?

Looking back at the Why Would You Use It...we covered a couple of How Can You Use Its.  But there's always more! 

Here are just a few random ideas.

• free writing - give those kids that don't love writing an outlet to write judgement free
• centers - put blogging in a writing or ELA center
• A Day in the Life Of... - have students write from the perspective of someone else, dig deep and explore emotions and ideas and reasons; think a day in the life of Rosa Parks...why wouldn't she move?  Did she intentionally want to be remembered?  Did she really want to start a movement at that moment?  Was it planned? etc.
• visual writing prompts - provide that controlled choice in what they write about 
• travel journal - Ashley has 4th graders blog through Ancient China; they learn about the dynasties and write as a time traveler learning about the culture, art, food, etc. 
• reviews - books, movies, restaurants, etc. provide opportunities to learn how to articulate specific positives as well as constructive criticism
• story - tell a story...or do a story chain (each person writes so much and then another picks up where the last one left off and repeat)
• recipes - learn how to write and follow a recipe
• scientific observations - write observations throughout a science experiment, start with a hypothesis and include the conclusion
• NOW YOU!  What ideas do you have that we can add to this post?

STARTING NEXT WEEK

We all know that you go to a conference like this and everything you like, you want to implement immediately.  But then (at least me) you get overwhelmed and you implement nothing.  Let's avoid that.  Everything 👆🏻 is great...but you're not going to do it all right away; ease yourself into it.  So let's talk if you don't have a blog for your class, can you get one?  If you can't get one for your class, get one for yourself.  

• post a blog and ask your students to post their replies as comments - it'll be a great intro and easy for you to keep track of student responses
• ask students to post an About Me post - tell the class 3 things that yourself; depending on their age you can ask for something that nobody else knows or add in a fun/interesting twist

GOOD LUCK!