Teaching with Blogs: Reflections to Date

Teaching with blogs continues to be incredibly exciting. The biggest problem (as is always the case with something new) is time. Not only time for me to think through what I’m doing, but to plan, to look at other class blogs, to deal with technological woes (e.g. spam, spam, and more spam), for the kids to post (as we’ve got lots of other exciting projects underway), and to read every single one of their posts and comments (with eighteen kid blogs and one class blog it is a lot).

That said, I’m still loving it. Lately we’ve been having the kids simply post various things they’ve written or drawn. Their most recent posts are news articles about their forced immigration unit (an assignment done by a superb associate teacher) and are excellent! (You can read them by going to the class blog here and then to the kids’ blogs which are linked over on the right) I love the way the blogs are becoming electronic portfolios with just about everything the kids have been doing lately.

I’ve also been using the main class blog as another place to post assignments (in addition to my oral directions, writing on the board, in handouts, and on charts). Here’s a Pilgrim Jeopardy one we just did.

The class blog is also a great electronic bulletin board. A week ago I wrote a post here about my plans for a Literary Salon involving “Jabberwocky.” The event took place on Monday and throughout the week a number of kids were creating their own versions of the poem in art and words. Yesterday I was able to put those into a post for all to see.

And then there are those kids who are such avid bloggers that they do way more than what is required. These kids post additional book reviews, poems, and more. Check out c15am, c15ck, c15hu, c15jg, c15mb1, c15md, and c15zb’s blogs to see more!