Below, please find a letter and proposal for blogging in the classroom. I have changed the name of the school just in case, but this school includes grades 6-8 and is getting out of the Accelerated Reader program and moving into Reader's Workshop as a school. There are approximately 1300 students and I am very excited at the prospect of using this information in my district. Enjoy!
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To Whom It May Concern,
I am writing in regard to creating blogs for classrooms in Delco Middle School. I would like to start this process slowly, with just a few classes and hope to move it into the entire school. There are many benefits to using blogging in the classroom, though I know there are also some concerns. Since our school is getting more iPad carts and computer carts for classrooms, it only makes sense for us to find more and more ways to use them. Blogging will give students a better voice, will keep them organized and learn about their own digital footprint, among other benefits.
As librarian, I plan to help teachers use blogs in the classroom by starting with one teacher and moving on to more and more as they wish. We will be starting with the Academically Talented Program (ATP) students. The class sizes are smaller and students have the time to start up something new. We will be using Edublogs as it has more privacy and is geared towards student use. We will begin with one blog for each class as opposed to each student having their own blog. The blog will be monitored by the ATP teacher as well as by me.
The students in ATP will use their classroom blog as a way to find assignments as well as a way to post about what they learned in class. As they do not have class every day, they will be responsible for posting one comment or question about their previous lesson as well as responding to at least three comments or questions posted by their peers. As the second quarter approaches, they will move into posting their work for all other students to see.
Students will each be given a pseudonym known to one another and the teacher, but not to the world, should anyone else decide to read this classroom blog. All comments will be monitored by the ATP teacher and me so that they will not be posted until they are approved which will avoid inappropriate posts. Students will also know that disciplinary action will be taken for inappropriate posts.
I hope that this test of blogging in the classroom will be a success so that we are able to move it into more classrooms each year.
Sincerely,
Erin Daley
Librarian
PROPOSAL:
Delco School District has earned such a wonderful reputation. We have excellent teachers and students who come from good families who are smart, polite and do well in school. We also have an amazing special education department for students who struggle or who just need a little extra help. However, there are always those students in the middle, the students whose voices aren’t really heard because they get by well enough and don’t cause trouble. If those students were told that instead of having to speak up in class, they were to contribute to a blog, their voices would be heard in every conversation. They would have time to think about what the teacher is asking and respond in their own time. They would know that what they have to say matters.
When these students who never really spoke up before are suddenly putting their opinions into the mix, new relationships will certainly erupt. Other students will listen to them and respond. Not all of these relationships will create new best friends, of course, but they will respect one another’s opinions and their ability to express that opinion as well as defending what they think.
Another great thing about having a classroom blog is that when one student reacts to another, they aren’t keeping that conversation to themselves, but are able to involve the whole class. And because the teacher is also part of the blog, he or she is able to monitor everything and even add some questions to comments to help a conversation along or to clear up misunderstandings.
Some students are quiet during class time because they simply cannot get their thoughts organized efficiently. Some people just need more time to think about what it is they really want to say. A blog would allow students to spend time reflecting on a question from a book, teacher or fellow student and then concentrate on putting their thoughts down. They can reflect on what they write before they post it and won’t have to be nervous about speaking in front of a group of people. THis is not to say that blogs should take the place of actual discussion, but as an extension of class time, it would be so valuable.
An upside to having a public display of work is that is forces students to think about what they are writing. A lesson so many students need today is the fact that what they put onto the Internet matters and their words have an affect on those who read it. With social networking being so anonymous, students don’t realize how large their digital footprint is becoming and when they are looking for a job one day, they should be proud of what they have put out for the world to see.
On top of all of these great reasons for a class blog is the fact that students are working on their writing skills. Skills that are tested each year with standardized tests. There is no reason that a blog has to be informal and poorly written. Students should be graded on what they submit to their teachers and peers and a blog is no different. They may be writing a small amount each day, but they are still honing their writing skills. Teachers could use this platform to post assignments that are larger as well, not just class discussions. He or she could post videos, links to other websites that student’s must read or even something like an exit ticket each day for students to discuss what they learned in class and why is was interesting. The possibilities are endless.
Reader’s Workshop is going to be a big change for our school this year. Moving out of Accelerated Reader testing and into a whole new way of reading is going to be tough for some teachers who have been using AR for so many years. A class blog could be a perfect way for teachers to keep up with what students are reading. They can post how many pages they are reading each week, post about an exciting twist in a book or write a book talk when they have finished so that other students will want to read their book next.
A side effect that may happen for some students is that they will see how blogs affect their learning. Perhaps they will want to create their own personal blog or follow blogs for topics they are interested in. If they wanted to one day, they could use their blog as a portfolio of sorts so that a prospective school or employee can see their writing and what they are doing to make this world a better place. It could also be a place where they collect information on topics they are interested in. This gives students a much broader world view and perhaps they will know a little bit more about what life is like for people in all parts of this world. A blog can be used for so much good if that is what a person wants from it.
Lastly, blogs can be an excellent tool for student collaboration. If students were to create their own blogs as opposed to belonging to a classroom blog, they could follow just a few classmates and work with them for a quarter, or perhaps semester. They would be responsible for working together on projects or simply critiquing one another’s work. This would teach them how to be constructive as well as giving them a chance to look at how other students create a project or paper based on the same instructions that they are given. This type of thing is done at a college level all the time, and I think students in lower levels would really enjoy it.
A problem that may come up with blogging is the fact that they are public. There are certain blog sites such as Edublogs that give security to schools so that what students write is not public to the world. However, if a teacher were to chose a different platform without such security, they can certainly create their own. Students can be given pseudonyms known to the teacher and their classmates, but not to the world, so that a public reader would not know who they are. This would allow parents to follow the blog and read about their child’s thoughts and see how they are doing in this particular class.
Though privacy is a big issue, I think that overall a classroom blog would work very well for nearly all students in our school. Our students have grown up in a digital world and they understand technology. They want to use their own devices and be allowed to have them in school, they just need to be put to use in a positive way. We can help them to create a positive digital footprint.
