Chapter 3
Weblogs Get Started! – Mary Guerino
Where to start? I thought this chapter
gave a lot of practical suggestions for a teacher who is a novice at
blogging. Enlisting parent support and
informing parents of the purpose of your blog is important. Also, celebrating
children’s work fosters self-esteem, and helps to create a community of
learners. Finally, educators using a blog to promote a professional community
of learners would be a great way to learn about technologies, ideas, and
problem solving techniques to help the teacher in the classroom.
Where to start?
Although I don’t know much about blogging, I did try Kidsblog last year
in the classroom with some success. I liked the admonition from this author
that the blog could be a spot where you could pose a question for kids to
research or think about. I plan on starting my kidsblog in November and will
use some thought provoking questions tied to my curriculum to foster some
critical thinking. Recently, the
children have been learning about life cycles. In a National Geographic article
about butterflies a scientist states that they are investigating how
butterflies use the sun to stay warm and researches say that their shinglelike
structure could provide clues to help solar technology. My question to my students might be: Have you
ever thought about what other animals might have inspired current scientific
discoveries? Where could we go to find out?
I was intrigued with your using kidsblog in your classroom so I googled “how to use kidsblog with kindergarten students”. I wanted to see if there was a way I could incorporate it in my classroom. I found a site where a K-teacher was interviewed and it also had a video showing how her students used this technology in kindergarten. It showed a child reading her blog about a seed. It was typed using inventive spelling and there was a picture which she labeled. Next, this was shown on a whiteboard and another child commented positively on how this student used spaces between her words, how the picture and words went together and how she labeled her picture. I thought this was really great. It was dated 9/2012. This had to be a brighter child who had many sound/symbol relationships already established. Anyway, there was a place to comment so I asked a few questions about the process and how long it took the kids to type. I hope she gets back to me! Maybe K-kids can blog!
ReplyDeleteI will be curious to see if the teacher commented your question in her blog. I will seek you out at class on Wed. and ask.
DeleteI am 7th and 8th grade reading and I can see using blogs in place of students' reponse journals. Currently I will have a quote on my elmo from brainyquotes (related to whatever text we may have been reading in class)that also has an image with it. They respond to it in their journals. This type of critical thinking does not come easily to many of my students. If they were creating their response on a blog, and then responding to others, this community of learning may be less intimidating. This forum gives a sense (false!) of invisibilty and is certainly less intimidating then perhaps being called on (if no volunteers) in class to read theirs out loud!