EduBlog Insights

have done with students. People want to know the details. I thought a blog post giving some details about each

project might be helpful for those interested in a more specific “how-to”. I’ll

group of fourth and fifth graders as a springboard to teach critical thinking

skills and media awareness, and to make connections with the school’s

curriculum objectives. We met two to three hours a week to work on this

project. NewsQuest was the weblog I used to keep a record of our learning

journey, both student and teacher. This was our class weblog. The software I

used was Manila.

After I posted for a short time, students began posting on the class

blog. They

were contributing editors. Manila

software lets you read the contributing editors posts and then

“release” them to

the blog. This software had different editor roles that you can choose

for

participants. The person in charge is called the managing editor. After

another

short time of the students posting on the class blog, they each created

their

own personal blog. Links to these student blogs are on the NewsQuest

blog. Students got to choose the template and do other management

tasks.

For a time I asked them to let me see their posts before they actually

released

it themselves but we progressed to peers checking their work to times

when

there was no checking, except for their own proofreading. The goal was

to get the students writing and thinking.

They discussed the news, wrote about their heroes, wrote poetry,

expressed

their opinions, stated what they liked about using weblogs, and wrote

about a

variety of topics. They had choices within these perimeters. Sometimes

I made

the writing choices for them. Students made connections to what they

were

studying in class as they practiced their writing skills.

I

received an email from Will Richardson, a fellow blogger who said, “This is

good stuff, Anne. Don’t you think it’s time my journalism students got together

with your journalism students?” That led to an exciting collaboration between

his class in New Jersey and mine in Georgia.

This was the beginning of the Georgia-New Jersey Connection. The high school

students mentored the elementary students. They corresponded back and forth on

the elementary student weblogs. Dialogue flowed between the teachers, the

students a voice they had not had before and led to learning discoveries.

Meredith and Kristen, two resourceful high school students, on their own,

color-coded the different elements of a news article, thus providing a visual

tool to help the younger students clearly see the different parts of a news

very important. We have to create an atmosphere that promotes a give-and-take

between student and teacher, student and student, and also a give-and-take

between the student, teacher and those responding outside of the classroom.

Students need to feel free to write what they’re really thinking. Then we can

enter the process and counsel students how to write responsibly while they

still can maintain their unique voice. I do think we have to be overseeing the

process. I don’t view that as vetoing what they write. I view it as responsible

teaching and a way to empower students to make their voice count. (Remember

for teachers. All comments come to your email. So the students had blogs but I

was the managing editor. I didn’t write on their blogs but I had access to

them. The students knew this. It is important to spend time talking with them

about your decisions, what you want to achieve as a group, and how weblogs can

from the high school students as well as random comments from others outside

our classroom. I would ask for volunteers as I was out and about. For example,

I had a friend from Paris

post a comment. The students were amazed someone from Paris was interested in their writing. Think

friends, school board members, senior citizens, family, etc. Don’t ask

The blog provided parents with a

window into their child’s school world that coud be easily accessed from the

web. My online record of the journey through the class weblog documented the