For my final vision project I am creating a class blog. This isn’t the first time I’ve created a web tool to use with my students. Just last year I created a one page website that had all of the web-tool links on it so that my primary students could easily find the sites from one place. The site I created was heavily used by my students and served its purpose, but it had a very limited audience...my students. Also, my students had no input into the site. It was basically an index of links.
My goal for this project is to get the students involved in blogging (basically online journaling) and widen the audience a bit. As Jackson (2012) points out, “Educators know that students write better when they have a real audience -- not just a teacher with a red pen. In the past, finding such an audience was a challenge. But with Internet access and some basic software, any student can write for the world to see.” Although one page of the blog will still contain those web links for online tools, it won’t be the main purpose anymore and it won’t be on the home page. The intended audience is the students and their parents. For the students I really think that blogging will give some purpose to their writing and will hopefully motivate them to take some pride in what they are writing. It will also be a positive way of incorporating technology into the classroom. For the parents, they will gain some insight into what their children are doing at school, reported by their own children. As a
So far, the individual pages I’ve considered adding to the blog, besides the home page where the student blogging with be showcased, are a resources page (as mentioned above) and a “teacher’s corner” page where I can write about things without interfering with the kids’ work. Over the next two weeks I’m going to spend some time with the students introducing them to the idea of blogging, viewing some other class blogs and working together to create our first post. Down the road I’d like the students to create the posts, but I think it’ll be really important to model what that looks like in the beginning.
Some considerations that I’ve had during my planning process is that some parents might be apprehensive about their children having an online presence. For this reason I will send a letter home explaining the safety precautions that will be taken, which will include password protection (after sharing for this course!), students’ first names only and no identifying photos. I will sit down with my admin and beforehand and make sure they are supportive going forward and seeing if they have additional suggestions.
As a secondary audience I think that my colleagues might be interested in seeing the blog once it’s up and running and possibly try and start their own class blog. As of yet, I’m not sure how I would present it to them because I haven’t gone through the process yet and I’m not sure what challenges I’ll face. One challenge I can anticipate is simply the time it takes to learn the dashboard on Edublogs. It’s not a difficult site to navigate, but it does take some time to learn how to set up the blog on the back-end. I’ve spent some time this week adding a bit of content and editing the theme. I could see this being quite daunting for someone who isn’t comfortable with technology. These people may need some more mentorship to get a class blog up and running.
Works Cited
Jackson, Lorrie (2012, February 28). Blogging? It's Elementary,My Dear Watson!. Education World. Retrieved from https://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/tech/tech217.shtml
Morris, Kathleen (2011, July 19). Blogging with Very Young Students. Primary Tech. Retrieved from http://www.kathleenamorris.com/2011/07/19/blogging-with-very-young-students/
I really love the idea of a class blog! I have not tried this myself but have heard of people doing it in the past. I definitely think letting the parents know is important as we have to with most other technology tools. I know in the past there used to be kid-friendly blogs to help with those privacy concerns. I just checked and https://kidblog.org/home/ is one but costs money now, unfortunately, whereas I believe it was previously free. I think a class blog is a great way to introduce students to this platform, and it is likely they will have to do something like blog in the future for school. Good luck! I cannot wait to see the final product.
ReplyDeleteWell done checkin post with a good description of your class blog project and how you envision it rolling out. A good discussion of the potential challenges, who the audience is and how to support their usage and interaction, as well as building up an authentic audience. You have planned for many things, including how best to support student privacy, as well as how to involve key stakeholders. A good plan for the future as well in showing this to your colleagues when it is complete. Looking forward to the final vision!
ReplyDeleteHi Jen,
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of blogging with your class! I think this is something that will really benefit my students so I'd like to follow and see how it turns out.
I've wondered what parents will think about their children blogging online too. Password protecting the pages will keep them visible only to the people they want to share with, though passwords can sometimes be shared very quickly (my previous school found out that a password can spread across the entire school in a matter of hours). This might also be a good tie-in to digital citizenship, especially about what kind of information to share online.
I like that you plan to model this with your students first - will you post some of these examples for students to look at later and remind themselves (or for us to see good examples too)?
Hi Jen,
ReplyDeleteThis is such a well-thought out plan! I love the precautions you are taking, and the care you're putting into this. Digital citizenship is such an important thing to learn and this offers an authentic experience for the students to participate and grow in it! I really like that you have specific reasoning behind setting up a blog - it's not just 'for fun' or 'to check off a box,' but to bridge the gap between school and home, and give the students an authentic audience for their writing. I'm sure having these reasons from the beginning will help ease any parents who are apprehensive about it.
Good luck! Can't wait to see some pictures of it!
-Kelli