Introduction

Good morning everybody. My name is Peter Paccone, I am a San Marino High School Social Studies teacher and the title of my presentation today is Three Great Ways for Teachers to Get Their Students to Blog.

Before digging in, I'd like to introduce you to Laura Bradley. Laura  is an extremely talented . . .

. . . Kenilworth Junior High School teacher.

When it comes to her classroom, Laura accomplishes so much but what she is most known for is her ability to bring before her students a large variety of interesting, informative, and engaging learning activities . . . and all this, in the most innovative ways imaginable . . . hence all the honors and awards that she has received over the course of the past several years.

In any event, at the start of the 2015-2016 school year, Laura said to me, "If your students are writing, “I challenge you to move that writing to blogs. And if your students aren’t writing, blogging is one way to get them to write."

With that in mind, I went to work and by year's end had formulated the following recommended approaches for teachers aiming to get their students blogging.

In other words, I think that if teachers want to get their students to blog, then teachers must first ask themselves “what kind of blog do I want my students to produce?”

Regardless of grade and/or student ability, there are, as far as I can tell, at least three great answers to this questions.

There’s the:

• Event in History Blog
• Project Based Learning Blog
• Learning Game Blog

In the next thirty minutes or so, I’ll describe each of these, with the bulk of my time spent on the Event in History Blog (it's the one that's most applicable to all grade levels and any subject matter.)

Along the way, if you have questions, please feel free to ask.

With whatever time we may have left over, I’d like us all, together, to not only create a blog but then to also do some blogging of our own.

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