Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Blogs in the Classroom
After creating a blog, I needed to figure out how I would utilize a blog in my classroom. My blog will focus on 1st grade and will incorporate all subject areas. I plan to use my blog as my classroom website. The blog will serve the purpose of communication between myself and my students' families. On this blog I will include a calendar of events, homework calendar, various links to other educational websites/games, classwork from our class, pictures from fun activities that we've done, and other helpful tips/information needed for parents and familes. I would teach my students how to access our class blog, so that they would be able to interact with it from home with the help from their parents. This would make it fun for the kids. They could go on our blog and write comments about lessons/activities they liked or comment on class photos. I also feel that by utilizing a class blog, the parent support/interaction would increase. Parents would have the opportunity to look at what we're doing at school. Parents would be able to see hall displays and class bulletin boards with just a click of the mouse. Also, by having a class blog, students are more likely to be more motivated to want to increase their technology skills. I could easily incorporate our class blog into technology lessons to spark their interest. Making learning more realistic with our class blog will increase engagement and learning. I believe that a blog is a good tool for instructional context because it will increase engagement while teaching students various technology skills needed for learning and real-world situations.
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I really liked how you would use the blog as a communication devise and a learning tool for students and their families. It would be a great way for parents to know what is happening at school even if they can not come and volunteer and see what is happening in the classroom themselves.
ReplyDeleteWith such young students, do you think first graders would really be able to make comments on the blog? I have a daughter who is going into first grade and who is at or above grade level in all areas. I can see her navigating to get to websites on the blog, but I have a hard time seeing her actually make comments on the blog without help from me. Is this a skill you would teach the students, or do you think the comments will be mostly for parents and the very top end students? I think this would be very motivating for students to learn how to make comments. What a great way to teach basic writing and typing skills to those little ones as well. Great ideas!
-Jill Morris
I love your idea of using your blog as a classroom website. I'm sure every parent would love your blog. It will help them keep up with what is going on with their child in your classroom. The thought of the classroom bulletin board with just a click is wonderful. I'm sure every one of your parents will feel more comfortable knowing that their child is in your classroom. I can imagine students will be very anxious about suggesting their ideas to you through the classroom blog.
ReplyDeleteI also wonder if first graders would have a problem blogging. Would you allow the parents to help? What would you do if you encounter a child who does not have access to the internet?
ReplyDeleteThanks everyone for your feedback!
ReplyDelete@Jill
I do think that with a lot of practice 1st graders would be able to interact with the blog and if they have help from their parents, that would be totally okay with me. It's all a learning process and if they grasped at least one skill from the blog then they learned something about it to take with them to 2nd grade. I'm 27 and am just learning how to blog! :o)
@Demetria
For students with limited or no access to internet, I would allow classroom time for them to be able to have an opportunity to interact with our blog. We also have communitiy nights at our school for families and we could even have a technology night! I also love your idea aboue getting ideas from the class for our blog. I just thought of an idea... I could get the class to vote on various things added to our blog, like a topic for a graph to be posted on our blog. :o)
@Crystal
First of all, I do not mind at all that you "liked" my ideas! Teachers help eachother! :o) As for your question, I think with you being in 4th grade, you could easily set up the blog as a class job to be rotated. The kids would probably love it! I totally agree with you about blogs being a paper saver. I would use my blog as my newsletter/website.