How can you use a blog effectively with children ages 5-10? Let’s share some ideas with each other.
I really like the ease of blogging and adding photos and links to showcase student work. Some examples I’ve seen in schools of effective blogging are for each student to write what they are thankful for at Thanksgiving, or tell what their first gift of Christmas would be after reading the Polar Express.
Suggestions: Have students respond to literature by typing in their comments for Language Arts.
Math: Have students explain the steps in solving a math problem.
Science: Take pictures of nature or science experiments, upload them to the blog and let students comment about the photos.
Social Studies: Upload photos of historical figures and have students write about them.
Ask a question so the students have to formulate their own opinions and post it on the blog. For example: ” Is watching TV good for you or bad for you?” ” Do you think homework helps you learn?”
The Armstrong teachers decided to create a blog on their GCSD teacher websites.
They decided to use their blogs for classroom discussions!
Did you know that you can now upload videos to your blog from your Flip Camera very easily using Media Share with Discovery Education?
Here is a tutorial to show you how: Uploading Video to Your Blog
Here is an example of a video uploaded to Media Share: Winter Writing with Multi Age Class
I’m excited about Christmas! Santa Claus brings us presents, Santa Claus is bringing me an XBox 360 Kinnects. I’m excited about Christmas because I love candles. I’m excited about Christmas because I love to give presents to my dad. I’m excited about Christmas because I want a video game called PSP. I’m excited about Christmas because I want Smackdown Vs. Raw 2011. I’m excited about Christmas because I want Star Wars toys.
Abraham- We read book about the Polar Express. I got a golden ticket.
Thank you Abraham for writing on my blog! I hope you enjoyed your hot chocolate and marshmallow!
ana- we drak hot choklet and made a trane.
Our first gifts of Christmas:
jennifer – we drink hot choclit with mershmeleos
We haev been talking about bringing books to life. In class we watched the Polar Express and pretended we were on the Polar Express.
Here are our first Christmas gifts:
kevin- we jrenk hot chocklit with mushmelos ni it.
zach-we drink hotcocow it was cool
zach
mateo-wen we sow your book it has tecet
Our First gifts of Christmas…
marissa- we daku hotcooklit the hotcooklit
had moshs i thowu my cup away it wuz
Kimberly- We wer waching a movee.and we got hot chalh
fernando-we do not-tuk aboot-drug
we gec hoc coss miy favr pot is evelyn- bet win that wr gec hoc coss
fernando- we-got bals-form santa
al9x stop the chan
we wiach poar express and got hotchalh i like the prate about
he had make friend and the prate i like the most win he firn the bell and stant comes.breasia-
christian-wejrachotchocglit
cameron- we woch a movey sanat love the moves
brady-it was fun and we want A GOOD
fernando- we got bells from santa. then we got golden tickets. Then thats all.
3rd grade student: I think blogging in third grade would be awesome. You can look at your posts whenever you want and you can let people answer your questions. You can see your blog wherever you have the internet.
I loved watching the children share their stories on video. I bet they love going back and letting family and friends or maybe even their principal see all of the neat things they are doing in their class.
I bet their are technology grants out there that might help us to purchase a video camera for our class, but our phones might be another great way to capture these moments. Fran, what did you use to video the children?
I used my Flip video camera. I use it almost every day!!!
Well, I really enjoyed seeing and reading comments from former students! I miss them, and it was good to have a peek at what they are doing.
I do think this could be used in so many ways by students — one that popped right to mind was a Bookclub Blog for kids. It could be used in so many different ways. Students could comment on assigned books they are reading in class (perhaps the teacher poses a question to be answered, or they come up with their own), students could form groups all reading and commenting on the same novel, or they could just use it to recommend novels to others.
When I see all this great use of technology, it really hits me how much as teachers we need to SHARE what we do and what we know. There is so much out there, that it would be impossible to know every new application that comes along. And let’s face it, some of us don’t have whatever type of multiple intelligence it is that controls our computer savvy-ness! In my 20 years of experience most(thank goodness)of the teachers I’ve worked with have been willing to share whatever, whenever…but, I’ve also worked with those that shut their doors and are unhappy to let you borrow anything or any idea. It really is time to help one another (which would probably mean less time and effort for everyone in the end), and truly put children first.
It is exciting to see teachers who are willing to venture into the unknown for the sake of our students. Hopefully they will experience other teachers who are willing to take risks.
I really enjoyed seeing the students share their stories on camera. What a great way to motivate them! I am planning to try having my students use a Flipcamera to make a commercial for our theater when we do our money/economics unit and to interview other students as they travel to each “business” in Gatorville. I think they will be so excited and it will give us a way to share what we’re doing, too.
How neat to see our students reading what they wrote! I agree with Carol how we need to share ideas! I know as a librarian, I get to collaborate with many teachers and share ideas but it would be really neat to step out of our boxes and share our ideas with the entire faculty! We have sharing sessions as librarians within the district and I have learned so much from other peers.
Blogging with the students would be great! I think it would be neat to have this on my website so the students can comment on the books we’ve read but also on our lessons. For example, we could pretend that we are the committee that gets to choose the Caldecott winner and we could comment on what makes the books special and why or why not they should be the winner.
Blogging could also be used at all grade levels. I am not a seasoned “techie,” but recently was introduced to blogging in the classroom. One high school ELA teacher assigned characters (from different literary selections) and has each student participate as that character in her blog. Sounded fun and fantastic as a new avenue for total student engagement! I plan to set up a blog of my own that at first would be directed to my students with further expansion to other 6th grade students in our school, the district, our state and beyond worldwide. I can just imagine the excitement generated might even become a competitor for all of those dreadful video games! What a super thought!
I started a Wiki from pbworks in my 4th grade classroom. I was enthusiastic in presenting it and that let to great response around the classroom. The students are getting more and more familiar with it. They are starting to leave comments on the main page, mostly “hi” and “this is way cool.” A few have even showed parents and made posts from home. I added pages for Math, ELA and Technology Tricks so far. I think I will start an Algebra post for this week. They can all type in a short sentence on what they have learned about expressions and equations thus far.
I definitely think a blog or wiki form of online communication is much more interactive and user-friendly than our websites! They are so much easier to upload things, too, and if parents have a comment or question, it’s easier for them to communicate!! AND, the BEST part is that it can get the KIDS communicating, too, and it’s in such a fun way that they’ll be willing and enthusiastic!! I would love to start a blog for my classroom!!
I like the idea of the blogging and the use of the flip cameras. I could tell the students enjoyed what they were doing which is different from what I see at school.
My co-teacher next door is currently taking a fast track Master’s class on Technology so we compare notes on what we’re learning each week. Her teacher has made a class blog for them instead of a Wiki. She wants to see about incorporating and setting up a blog for each student for the E-Portfolio’s (a requirement for all IB elementary schools) instead of keeping it on the common drive (which totally crashed last year at our school and lost everything). She and I will be working together to make this a reality.
I have a flip camera and now know a new great way to use it! I would love to create a class blog to use at the end of each day for reviewing, wrapping up the day and sharing! I like the fact that others can comment and what a reat way to encourage student writing!
I think that blogging in the classroom sounds like so much fun for the teachers and students. I always think that when students feel free to tell you about what they have done or how they feel about something it opens them up to really want to learn more… They also like too see what they have written.
What an awesome idea for young children to dialogue and to show their creativity! Seeing their work published in a Blog would be a powerful, interactive tool and a great way to share opinions.
Looking forward to using my blog with my students! I think they’ll love sharing their opinions and ideas with each other.