I have always been interested in blogs - at least since blogs became a thing. I enjoy reading humorous posts about everyday experiences and learning new tricks to improve my life. As a teacher, I rely on blogs as a source of "best practices" and fresh ideas. But, I can't say I've ever desired to author one.
This year, my third graders will be creating their own blog with the help of my partner (the reading teacher). Students will be using Kidblog to post individual journal responses and collaborate with one another on various topics. I'm excited to see the direction this goes once it is fully running. If nothing more, they will get some typing practice in before the dreaded PARCC exam!
As for creating my very first blog today, it's been going pretty well. I'm about to attempt to link my group members using RSS feeds or something, so that should be fun... (I'm pretty intimidated!!!). Keep your fingers crossed that I figure that out!
A good resource is youtube for tutorials on computer stuff. Nice when people show you step by step what you need to do. Try doing that if you ever feel intimidated.
ReplyDeleteI use YouTube for everything... I've actually become a pretty handy electrician.
ReplyDeleteI like the look of your blog. Third grade seems like such an important time for students to learn keyboarding skills and blogging can really help. What subjects will the students be blogging in? Just reading? When my daughter was in 3rd grade, several students had a cool blog on Minecraft. What is the PARCC exam?
ReplyDeleteThanks Karen! We are departmentalized this year and I teach math, science and social studies. My ELA partner originally thought of the blog as a format for students to publish their writing and journal entries. However, I think it will be nice to use it in science and social studies as well.
ReplyDeleteSo far, we haven't really gotten to the content!
The PARCC exam is the Maryland state standardized test that is now given to assess mastery of the Common Core goals. It is administered completely on the computer (even the math portions). Our students have limited access to computers and most don't have one at home. So, we are concerned about their ability to answer assessment questions when they need to type. This will (hopefully) give them some practice. However, I'm a little dismayed that some of our top readers/writers might not score highly because they don't have the keyboarding skills (due to lack of computer access as a result of extreme poverty) and can't type a coherent written response.
But.... that's a whole other kind of post...
Jackie, I teach 6th graders that also cannot write OR type a coherent written response. What is the world coming to? If only Microsoft WORD had sentence stems.....
ReplyDelete