Beginning blogging sessions with elementary students
I’ve had two more sessions with the J. H. House students. Briefly, session one consisted of discussing blogging as a process in which they will:
We discussed the “craft” of commenting on blogs. The students commented on my previous post. They loved reading Harley’s welcome and made comments back to him. All this is summarized on my previous post.
Then to the student’s amazement they heard from Karen in New Zealand who invited them to come visit. This led us to Room 7 Tamaki Primary School and Tamaki Primary School Writers Group. What great blogs! It looks like there is much more to explore on this site. Unfortunately, we could not see their intriguing movies but I will work to see if they are blocked or what the problem is. There was no time during class to do this so the students just promptly got to the business of commenting and they loved reading the blog and making replies. They are jumping in and learning how to comment, how to invite response, and share the joys of blogging. Wow! Making connections is so much fun. First, Harley, then New Zealand - we have a fantastic beginning. We can only imagine what will follow! We had to adapt our commenting to New Zealand in that you had to have a gmail or blogger account. Harley’s blogger account let us just type in first names and urls. That was much easier but I will contact Karen and see if it’s possible to change that. Learning all the ins and outs of blogging takes time in the beginning but these students are quick studies! I can just tell it’s going to be another incredible year. The plan this year is that Mrs. Emmert will have a class blog with the students and I will expand their horizons in other aspects. I have lots of ideas. I plan to introduce the students to possiblilities and get their feedback. Developing reflective voices is a high priority. We have to figure out what is blocked and what is not and figure ways to share their learning, both in and outside the classroom. Mrs. Emmerts sends me her lesson plans and I can see that one of the things that they have been heavy into is the 6 traits of writing. That’s a perfect place to start. Now I’m off to create a new blog for this project! I’ll direct you there as soon as we get this reflective blog, the classroom blog, and student blogs going.
Any blogging classrooms out there who would like to connect???? Any others interested? Leave a comment……
August 28th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
Hi to your class. I can’t wait to read their blogs and see what they learn while blogging.
I am a parent of 3 Distributed Learners in BC, Canada. (Distributed Learners are like homeschoolers except they are supervised by an online teacher). We live on the south coast of BC and the kids school is in Vanderhoof BC (about a 12 hour drive to the interior of the province).
August 31st, 2008 at 1:47 am
Our cluster, which Tamaki Primary School is a part of has just got into blogging this year but we love it, its really opened our students eyes to the world. I know the students at the primary school will be absolutely thrilled to have overseas feedback! If theres anyone interested in being online pals or online buddies and swapping classroom information let us know! Have a look at our work online on tamakitoday.blogspot.com!
Mr Webb, Tamaki Intermediate School, Auckland, New Zealand.
September 1st, 2008 at 7:39 pm
Great to have an audience so far away from New Zealand. All our writing and presentations are closely linked to our school wide English plan. We belong to a cluster of schools in Auckland New Zealand- involved in an intiative which is designed to be literacy based and the ICT componant is our “hook’- our intiative is called Manaiakalani. The students have responded extremely well to the BLOG and love getting feedback so we would love to hear from other students and by all means follow our links there is a lot of great stuff happening in our cluster!!
Rhonda Kelly
Tamaki Primary School
September 16th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
Carolyn,
It is wonderful to hear from you. We look forward to the conversations. This group is going to be a great group to work with. They are looking forward to blogging. Are your children blogging? I am getting ready to post about the first day of blogging. Distibuted learning is a neat concept. Thanks for explaining it. I have been busy, busy this past year and we are still writing the research articles for the Blogical Minds group. Research is an extremely time consuming process but it is so worthwhile to contribute. Best to you!
September 16th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Mr. Webb and Tamaki Writers,
We are getting the student blogs up and going and I have the links on a blog to be used with the students and others. We look forward to commenting back and forth. Look for an upcoming post that will point you to the new blogs!
October 5th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
To Anne, Mr. Webb, and Tamaki Writers-
Your blogs are wonderful examples of student learning! As a veteran teacher trying to “catch up” with this new technology, it was impressive to see how blogging can weave itself into the curriculum. I am one of a group of teachers enrolled in a course to learn how we can integrate Web 2.0 tools into our teaching. It was suggested we look at this blog. Although, I am certainly at the far end of the learning curve right now, your blogs gave me hope. It is wonderful to see theory put into practice. It’s clear your students are reaping the benefits from these learning experiences. Please feel free to share any pointers with us “newbies,” and I wish you continued success with your projects.
January 16th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
Haha thats a cool post mate. I did think about setting up blogs for the class i was helping out in, but the school didn’t go for it, which is fair enough i guess. I can understand their reasons. Anyway it sounds cool, all the best.
December 18th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
solid post , really good perspective on the subject and very well written, this certainly has put a spin on my day, many thanks from the USA and observe up the good work
June 21st, 2010 at 12:25 pm
I’ve used bloging with fifth graders before and really enjoyed it. I teach a youth writers camp most summers and set them up with blogs. I have campers who continue to keep in touch and write with the blogs through the years. In my regular classroom I teach third grade. I’m thinking of trying to use blogs in my classroom this year. What are your thoughts on using them with third graders? I’m worried that they will be too young. We do have a computer lab at my school but no computer teacher or structured computer class. Do you have suggestions for how to handle students who don’t have computers at home? Thanks for your advise.