EduBlog Insights

spent a delightful morning with the second graders in Miss Neville’s

class. Today they were introduced to blogs. The questions that unfolded

showed a lot of insight from this amazing little group.

between the questions little tidbits of information were shared, such

as how their siblings are on the computer 24-7, how much they love

working with technology, and up popped this question from one

bright-eyed and entergetic soul……”Can we use our own email?

Don’t you just love this? There is nothing better, absolutely nothing

than working with elementary students. They keep you on your toes and

they are so inspiring. I love to listen to them.

Let me back up and share how we began with this group of second

graders. We created a class blog, Neville’s Bloggers. The idea is to

start of with a class blog, explore possibilities as we tie the

conversations in to what we are learning in class. The teacher is going

to post as much as possible. She is learning right along with the class

- she’s sharp, just like her students. 

The goal today was to introduce the kids to blogs and then teach them

how to comment. When they comment, we use bogus emails. Those of you in

schools know how hard it is to get emails for students. Not having an

email is OK  because we really don’t want anyone emailing them, at

least not until we have had lots more opportunities to provide

guidance. So I told the one (sorry, I haven’t mastered names yet) 

that asked about emails that for now we were just going to use bogus

emails. Of course, I had to explain bogus - they got it and they

understood why.

I talked briefly about being ambassadors, of their class, their school,

their state, country, and yes even the world. I spent time on the

importance of learning how to use a tool well and being a good

representative of responsible use of that tool.  I’m planting

blogging seeds so that when they are teenagers and want to “write all”,

maybe, just maybe, they’ll ponder the possible results.

I asked Miss Neville to post a comment for the kids to see. They

watched. Gosh, they are a great group, so attentive and so willing.

Then I pointed them to BlogWrite and each student posted a comment to

one of the JHH students. I might add here that this took a bit of the

45 minute time slot we had. This group is currently participating in

Type to Learn Jr. so it will be nice when keyboarding skills have

progressed a bit. They got the comments done - short and sweet! It was

a good beginning and I can tell this group is going to soar.

The class went to PE and Miss Neville and I had a little planning time.

I showed her the inner workings of TypePad.

I’m going to make a help sheet for the students and a sheet for the

parents on how to comment. I’ve discovered that many times parents want

to comment but are unsure just how.We set up a few dates and

brainstormed. We meet again Feb. 3rd and she will have one session with

the children in the lab prior to my returning to the school.

On my way out of the school I had the chance to talk with the

Instructional Technology Specialist. We’re going to meet and he may

start a blog!