I have gone on a blog searching spree and I have found so many great blogs that are similar to what I would love to do one day. Many of these creators use their blogs to show what they are doing in the classroom and showing student work. They share ideas on best teaching practices and ideas that have worked well in their own classrooms. The communicate back and forth with other teachers in the comment section to offer suggestions and sharing alternate ideas. This is something I would love to get into one day. I know this type of commitment takes a lot of time to prepare the photos and resources to put on my page so I think this is something I could do when I am finished with my master's course.
In my own classroom, I think blogs would be a little difficult to use with Kindergartners. I have already attempted this and it was much too time consuming considering my students start out not knowing all their letters and sounds. If I taught an upper grade level such as 2nd, I could definitely use blogs in my classroom. I could post problems or a topic and allow the students to discuss and share ideas on how to solve it or share information they found on the topic. This would be a great way to incorporate technology into a literacy block. Students would love this type of assignment because they are already so used to texting and communicating on the computer. This would also help get them prepared for work they will have to do in their future education.
Some great blogs I have found for professional sharing are: Chalk Talk
Kindergarten Crayons
A great site I found that you can use in your classroom and is safe for students is Kidblog
Lea,
ReplyDeleteI love the blogs you added to your post. They really inspire me to continue learning more about blogs and how I can be more creative with my posts.
I understand your dilemma in blogging with little ones, it can definitely be a challenge. Teaching Kindergarten for two years I have seen the range in learning abilities! I wonder if blogging with them could be more of a whole group effort? I know that it would be a lot of the responsibility on you, but maybe after you have had the students complete a project based lesson, perhaps you could have the students tell you what the loved about the project, you could write their comments down and either add it to the blog with pictures from the project, or write their comments on the board and take a picture and post it to the blog? You could even take a picture of their group or individual project with a whiteboard behind it that has their comments written right on the board. Like I said, I know this would be a lot of responsibility on your part, so perhaps you could ask the lead teacher, or encore teachers at your school to provide you some additional support if you would rather have the students typing on the computer? Just some thoughts for you. :)
I like this idea! You had mentioned something similar in my post - about using a bulletin board where students can post information? While it won't be "high-tech", it does get students used to the idea of posting and commenting about content. Once they have the idea down in a physical, concrete way, they can then apply it to the digital world. It may be easier for students at this developmental level to physically post information then for them to understand sending words and pictures out into cyberspace, especially since they are still learning about the power of the written language.
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