Blogging with Students

I’ve just finished setting up my class list in KidBlog, and I’m eager to get going with my classes on their class blogs. I’ve had class blogs for the last three years, and each year I get a little better about using them effectively. There are a variety of different blog sites you can use, but KidBlog is designed for teachers, I’ve had good success using that site, and best of all, it’s free!

What can you use a class blog for? I think it is a great way for kids to see how writing can be something powerful and useful in their every day lives. Last year we wrote fables, and then I had the students type them into their blogs. Each student was then asked to read at least two other fables and respond to them. We talked about writing comments, and what kinds of things really made a comment helpful. Comments like “I like this” are nice, but it’s much more powerful to write something like “I liked how you made the tiger show the mouse how he really felt”. We practiced a bit beforehand with comment writing, and it substantially improved the quality of comments. Some teachers will have students do some “paper blogging”, and I’m going to try that this year as well. We’ve been writing poems, and I’m going to have students pick one they really like, copy it out in their best handwriting, and put them around the class. We’ll discuss commenting, and then I’ll turn the students loose with at least three post its.  They will need to read at least three poems and write out three comments that specifically notice something the writer did. If they say “I like this”, they will then need to explain why.

After doing this activity, I will introduce the blogs on the computer. I think I’m going to have them type that poem or another one in as their first post, and we’ll repeat the comments activity. Later in the year, I will ask them to type in other forms of writing we do in class, in addition to letting students choose what their topics will be.

I set the privacy settings to just our class having access; nobody else can read the posts. I also choose the setting that lets me look over the posts and comments before they get published. This is a bit time-consuming on my end, but I’ve learned the hard way that if I don’t moderate it, someone is going to write something that is inappropriate, and everyone will see it before I do. I’ve also included my partner teacher (who teaches math/science) and our Talent Development teacher on the list, so they can post questions for students to respond to as well.  Students can access the KidBlog website through a link on my classroom webpage, so they can blog whenever they like, not just at school. Some kids love to write about all kinds of things, while others will just post when asked to in class.

If you haven’t considered having a class blog, it might be something you want to try this year. It gives students an authentic writing platform, and in today’s social media world, learning how to write helpful comments can’t hurt.