Thing 2

Top 10 Tips For Student Blogging (guest post by @mrodz308)

This post in thing 2 was particularly interesting.  It shows that giving students some independence with their education that they can enhance their own experience.  As the author explains the ten tips each one seems to go back to a few key points; student ownership of the work, trust and independence.  These students grew by making choices and being vested in what they were writing about.  On top of getting the kids to take control of their education it allowed the kids to get their work in front of a larger audience.  Reading through the kid’s responses in the article, they seemed to be expressing joy in how their work is being viewed beyond the classroom.  We are using DOJO to connect with parents, but blogging seems to be a much more effective way to share a wider spectrum of the student work.

Huzzah class blog

This link just hit me with a ton of great ideas.  Here at 28 School we constantly have things going on during the school day.  Celebrations, assemblies, guest speakers and recognition's.  This would be a great way to share these events with the public and beyond.  We would be able to implement the blogging into writing time in ELA.  This would provide opportunities for the kids to get more info in what is actually happening in the school and be able to share what they are excited about.

Even farther forward thinking is with our after school programs and clubs.  We run an after school club for archery and another for agriculture club.  We are looking for new ideas of activities to do and the kids love to share.  Blogging would let us share what we are doing here, and allow kids to communicate with others around the world that are doing similar activities.  It would fulfill a piece of the academic portion of the club with more meaningful assignments.  The kids could share their hands on experiences.

Looking through some of the other tabs in this section there are many ideas that seemed to be beneficial for different reasons.  In one of the videos I observed a teacher speaking about a school that uses blogging that travels with them through grade levels.  This allowed the school to build a running record of student work that teachers could go back and review.  My current position is in a building that has a high number of kids that track from k-8^th grades.  This type of work would build a bigger connect across grades between teachers and students, but also between staff.  It would be a common tool that the whole school can work with.