Student Blogging

Last week, I had the pleasure to spend some time in Brenna's room as she was hosting an internal lab around Blended Learning.  Brenna's focus was around using blogging to give kids a space to go public with their knowledge around Space.  Her unit was inquiry based and students had a chance to pick any question they wanted to research.  Many wanted to know what it took for a planet to have life on it.  Many others wanted to know about aliens.  Still others were interested in knowing more about Black Holes (spoiler alert.... they are DEATH TRAPS!)

I have had student blogs for several years now, and I still feel like I struggle with exactly what the process is that we need students to go through in order to be effective bloggers.  I wondered if it was developmentally appropriate to expect fourth graders to really understand the power of blogging.  Watching Brenna's third graders work was inspiring.  Here are some takeaways for me:

Blending
There was some serious blending going on in this classroom!  Students were working on going public on an inquiry around Space, they were determining importance and monitoring for meaning in their written pieces by highlighting and bolding important text and creating engaging blog titles.  Many, but not all, students were grabbing a Chromebook to begin

blogging, but they had a real understanding of the timing and purpose of blogging.  Is it okay to host a Blended Learning lab and not have every student on a device?  It was ideal!

The Paper Blog
I had a real 'why didn't I think of that' moment when I saw students creating their 'paper blogs'.  As we observed, at least half of the students were not ready to crack the lid of their Chromebooks.  They were still paper blogging, creating a mock up of their posts on paper, complete with highlighted words, color and inserted sketches of pictures they were going to embed.  I had the sense that students who might be reluctant to write a rough drafts were really into paper blogging.  Again, a perfect example of making the tool fit the purpose.

Going Public

3, 2, 1 Exit Ticket

Brenna's plan is to have students go public with their inquiry work, which will lend itself to a conversation about how to effectively comment on the blog.  This is also a perfect opportunity for students to learn from each others' inquiry questions.  When they go public in this way, will it lead to a greater discussion of their topics and sharing the collective knowledge?  Will students be given the opportunity to further discuss through the blog and will this be a worthwhile effort with third graders?  

This was a great example of what blogging can look like in an inquiry-based unit and opens up all kinds of opportunities for us to take a second look at blogging and how adept students are with this kind of technology at a very young age..  I am looking forward to seeing what great things are next in Mrs. Markson's classroom.

Want to read some for yourself?  www.kidblog.org/Markson