Blogging in the Classroom

By Wednesday, post an idea for how you might use a blog in your classroom.
           One of my goals for this class is to implement some of the latest technologies into my third grade classroom effectively. As I learn the ropes of using a blog, I reflected on how I could successfully use blogging within my room. Currently my students are really starting to use the writing process: prewriting, rough draft, revising, editing, and finally, publishing. At one point in the writing process they need to hold a peer writing conference, in which one person reads and the other gives at least one positive comment and one revising suggestion about the written piece. This proves very challenging for students, as they do not always remember what their partner read and/or they do not give a very meaningful suggestion.

            I would like to use blogging as an outlet for students to work through the writing process and eventually showcase their published work. Specifically, I would like to form small groups of three or four students to act as a team in revising each person’s work. Each child would submit his/her rough draft, and the other members of the team would come up with at least one compliment and one revising suggestion. After the child has made the necessary revisions, he/she could post the published piece.

            As Richardson (2010) points out, many students do not realize, especially elementary age ones, how to properly post to a blog, so initially I would post my own ‘rough draft’ for all students to reflect on and help revise. I would also show examples of various levels of meaningful, helpful posts, so that students know exactly what is expected of them when giving feedback.  

            In using a blog to help teach students about the writing process, students are becoming more involved in each other’s writing. By posting to a blog, students need to work hard to come up with meaningful compliments and feedback. Toffler (1980) argues that education is becoming more collaboration-driven as society moves through this technological age, which is what the purpose of this blog would be: working together to create published written work. This also gives me the chance to really monitor the students’ writing progress and ability to give constructive feedback.  I could also make the blog accessible to parents, so that they have a chance to see their own child’s progress. Overall, it seems that blogs provide an innovative way for students to work together and for parents to stay connected with school.

Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
Toffler, A. (1980). The third wave. New York: Bantam Books.