Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Slice of Life: It's a Great Time to Start Kidblog!

Thanks to Stacey, Dana, Tara, Betsy, Anna, and Beth, the amazing writers and thinkers who host the Slice of Life community every Tuesday. Everyone is welcome to join with posts or comments at twowritingteachers.wordpress.com!

I am probably preaching to the choir to many of the people who will be reading this post, but I'm going to preach anyway. If you are thinking about getting Kidblog started in your classroom, now is the perfect time. Here are some reasons:

  1. Unless your students become obsessed with posting videos, it's free.
  2. It's a new year, so it's a great time to start new things. If you love it, what a great thing to start in September with a new class. (If you hate it, there's only half a year left...)
  3.  It's almost March, the month that many of us associate with daily slicing. Starting Kidblog now would give you enough time to work out kinks and possibly set up some collaboration with another classroom from a different part of the country. (How cool would that be for students?!?!)
  4.  Blogging gives students organic opportunities to practice their keyboarding. Any student who is proficient on the keyboard will do better on the assessments that most of us will administer in the next few months. (I didn't want to mention high stakes assessments, but they are a reality...)
  5. Nothing teaches writing better than writing. We slicers know how motivating it is to have responses and comments. And, if we really think about it and analyze our posts, we know the sort of posts that generate a lot of responses. Students can learn this, too. They can learn how to write for an audience, in a way that gets people to pay attention. What an important skill for them to learn!
  6. You will get to know your students better than you already do. Many students will share emotions, fears, conflicts, and passions that are jam-packed days just don't provide time for us to get to know. One of our teachers shared her students' posts with me and I have all kinds of conversations to have with some of her students. Admittedly, these students are not mine, and maybe I would have known about some of the skiing adventures or riding obsessions if I saw these children every day. But days are packed in our classrooms, so we might not know as much about our students as we think we do. 
  7. You will laugh. Students are funny, even when they don' be. One student wrote that another should "check her grammer." (I didn't comment that she should "check her spelling." I just had a chuckle that I'm passing along.)

For those of you who are already blogging with students, please share reasons to start. For those of you who are thinking about it, go for it! 

Happy Slicing!




14 comments:

  1. Yay for Kidblog ging! Yes I'm in the choir but thank you for encouraging anyone who might be wanting to join in!
    I don't know if this a good or a bad thing but my kids don't thing of blogging as writing. To them it's different...better.

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  2. Another Yay for Kidblog ging...I'm trying to convince our school - for now it's just Google Classroom.

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  3. These are all great reasons, Melanie! I especially love the honesty of #2 - if you hate it, there's only half a year left! True! But who would hate it, right?!

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  4. Melanie, kidblogging sounds wonderful but I am having a difficult time convincing teachers to try Twitter. I will keep on advertising its benefits and then maybe, I can move on to teacher blogging/kid blogging.

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  5. I've been out of the school tech loop for a few years and hadn't heard of KidBlog. Thanks for the introduction. Tucking that one into my back pocket for a future use!

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  6. I've used edublog a few years ago in a special class, but started with my class since we returned from the winter break, & we're doing blogger. Remember these are older students, well able to manage their own e-mails, etc. Why to blog-for the writing & sharing I think. Writing for an audience (instead of just me the teacher) makes the writing better. They've only done about 5 posts (slicing & book reviews) & only a few have missed. Good luck, Melanie.

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  7. I'm hoping to convince a fifth grade teacher to give it a try. I may be emailing you questions. She thinks there is a cost for individual blogs.

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  8. Love this post -- I don't have my own classroom,but I plan to share with teachers. I think the authentic audience and feedback is key to blogging and our students need it.
    Clare

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  9. I do not have a classroom of my own but I plan to share this with teachers. Audience and authentic feedback are key and our students need both! Thank you for the great list of reasons!
    Clare

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  10. Love your list of reasons...I have used it with my own class and got others to use it as well. Definitely meaningful for students!

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  11. Melanie,
    I love how you worked "fun and humor" into your post! KidBlog is amazing and some of the new changes coming are going to make it even more enticing for students as they can amp up their own "creations"! Great list that I can share with others . . . for that I also thank you!

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  12. My students love kidblog. This year I moved from requiring one post a week to requiring three, 'Monday, What are you Reading?", Tuesday Slice of Life, and Poetry Friday. They are writing more than ever and enjoying it. Commenting is something I have to grade for as well to make sure that they do it. Kidblog makes it easy to look at a single student's activity. I truly believe this has changed the quality as well as the quantity of writing my students do.
    Thanks for promoting blogging with your teachers.

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  13. This is a great piece of persuasive writing, Melanie! I'll be sharing it with my colleagues.

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  14. I've had great success with blogging and will help you sing its praises by sharing your post with teachers!

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