Final Word on Blogging

At the start of the 2015-2016 school year, when Laura Bradley first challenged me to blog, my only real goal was to get my students to write more.

But as things developed, I learned something and that is that I have come to define the term “blog post” as a piece of writing or some other item of content (image, video clip, iMovie, sound clip, etc.) that is intended for and otherwise appears on a blog.

Therefore, given my definition of the term "blog post," I believe that the true beauty of a blog isn’t just that it provides students with an opportunity to write, but that it also provides students with an opportunity to:

• Demonstrate proficiency when it comes to a whole host of other all-important 21st Century skills, including collaboration, creativity, tech and multimedia, research, public speaking and publishing, among others. 

• Produce a work that can be read and responded to by a wide audience. What a great motivator.

Other than that, a few final thoughts

1. For all the blogs described in this presentation, a team of student editors was created to assure quality and consistency.
2. As to the question of what did my students think of all this bloggin? To answer that question, one need only to look through any one of the three examples I have provided. No matter the number of extra credit points offered, students don’t produce work like this unless they find the work interesting, informative, and engaging.
3. The approaches described were designed to provide students with an extra credit learning opportunity, but there’s no reason that they couldn’t be used as primary learning activities or extensions.
4. Last year, I wrote an article for the Edutopia.org entitled Three Great Ways for Teachers to Get Their Students to Blog and in the comment section of that article, a number of educators, including at least one kindergarten teacher, shared links to how they have gotten their students to blog. See below for the comments.

Amanda
Great post! I have found blogging to be very rewarding and engaging in my third-grade classroom. My students blog about their reading and I usually post a new opportunity for each unit. I have seen an increase in writing length, quality and the care they take in responding/reacting to their peers. Here is ours: http://thirdgradereaders.blogspot.com/

Collmissionstats
Nice post, using a blog is a very good way to help student to learn so easily and now it's a very good method to communicate your student and allow them to put their views. Once again thank for this post.

Marilyn Yung
Thanks for this post! 2016-17 is my year for my students to dive into blogging. I'll use your ideas to do just that. Thank you.

NVradenburg
My K-1 class blogs using EasyBlog on iPads! We share pictures of our work. The EasyBlog app has an audio recording feature so students can post a picture and then talk about it. My students share their writing, math problem solving and reading this way. You can see our class blog at www.bit.ly/vburgblog

denisewebb
I teach my high school photography students to blog using Wordpress or Blogger. Here are some examples of their work. Some used the platform of blogging to create online portfolios of their work in class. Others used it for journaling purposes. I allow lots of freedom for students to learn independently and choose their projects, so blogging is an effective way for me to assess their progress.

Kaitlin Morgan
I've been having students blog for three years. Here are links to my students from this year:

9th   - https://goo.gl/Sm395p 

10th - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/152lD3...

11th - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1y8vmZ...
Nikki Vradenburg
My classroom uses blogger or jrblogger. Some years we blog more than others, Just as we as adults tend to journal more some days than others. Peer edits to no edits. Remember third grade as you look and I encourage all writers to share!
http://boydsworld3.blogspot.com/

Mrs. Boyd
I started using blogging for an alternate to spelling homework. I went from 6 kids blogging to 16!! They loved it. Their writing improved vastly so did their grammar skills. Using google docs helped them because of the effective feedback I could give.

http://jjsecretagents.blogspot.com/?m=1

I teach my high school photography students to blog using Wordpress or Blogger.

Here are some examples of their work. Some used the platform of blogging to create online portfolios of their work in class. Others used it for journaling purposes. I allow lots of freedom for students to learn independently and choose their projects, so blogging is an effective way for me to assess their progress.

https://themargoat.wordpress.com/page/2/

https://kaysjournalblog.wordpress.com

https://thelamenfamis.wordpress.com

https://vickitioriaphotos.wordpress.com

I've also used blogging for interactive class discussions. This one is from a few years ago, but worked well for the assignment, and I continue to use this format. I used blogger for this one, but have also used Edmodo:

http://prpphotoclass.blogspot.com/2011/10/vie..