Last weekend I spent some quality time with my buddy, Ben, a precocious, over-the-top silly, and strikingly honest 8 year-old. He's my resident sports expert, lab assistant, and sous chef (that is, when a dessert of his choice is on the menu!). Before we could explore his handy science kit that I'd pre-stocked for the holidays, Ben was given strict instructions from Mom to complete his remaining homework assignment...the ever dreaded journal entry.
Begrudgingly, he retrieved his spiral bound notebook from the abyss that is his knapsack and haphazardly began jotting down a few sentences. "There....I'm done!" he exhaled, as if holding his breath for the three minute span of writing. Ben slid his notebook across the table, inviting me to take a peak. The entry read "This weekend I went out to dinner. I went to my basketball game. Andrea came over." As a teacher, I knew that this minimalist response wasn't going to cut it. I encouraged him to add some details, perhaps the name of the restaurant, the score of the baseball game, or, at least, our "date night" adventures. I was met with the oh-so-typical eye roll and a murmur of, "But we do these EVERY week and it's only my teacher who reads them..."
Fast forward a few days and I find myself face-to-face with a variety of alternatives to the seemingly artificial daily/weekly/bi-weekly journal entry (not that journals aren't a helpful instructional tool, I just think there are other more engaging, digitally based alternatives!). Arzt (2012) shares a variety of blog implementation strategies for the classroom, noting how this platform enables students to publish for genuine audiences, while connecting, sharing, and conversing with other students and teachers. The article is chock full of links to sample blogs, student artifacts, and videos. I, especially, liked the Tale Trail Project, a Quadblogging endeavor where 5 different classes participated in a collaborative writing project, necessitating plenty of creativity, negotiation, and synthesizing, as each class authored different pieces of the story. It is a story after all, so the kiddos had to ensure that all of the individual pieces were neatly "woven" together to maintain continuity. Pretty incredible!
My teacher heart melted as I explored Miss D's class blog, documenting their butterfly project. Students posted a variety of questions they had about butterflies (note the adorable phonetic spelling!) in preparation for a Twitter chat with classes from around the world, where students could share their knowledge about butterflies! Talk about a way to inspire excitement and enable global communication :) The Global Read Aloud is another favorite of mine, as students from across the world read and respond to the same book using platforms such as Skype, Twitter, blogging, or a Wiki.
Now, how many of us remember literature circles?? I know, they're still relatively common in the classroom, but I'd hope they've evolved from those ditto-esque worksheets, necessitating a brief summary/picture/question from the "Director," "Illustrator," "Vocab Expert," etc. I remember filling mine out right before the bell rang at the end of the day to minimize my homework load...yes, I've always liked getting ahead. Anyways, I was DELIGHTED to read how West Hartford teacher, Johanna Cleary, uses blogging to establish book clubs! Can you imagine how much richer those discussions must be when students are able to converse with one another inside and outside of the classroom!? Personally, I think my little guy, Ben, would eat this up! Better yet, what if he had the chance to blog about his weekend adventures, and then receive comments from his teacher AND peers? I know for sure, that he would be thrilled to start off with Making Paper Blogs. Personally, I think it's the perfect way to provide a tangible representation for the how-to's of blogging.
So, what are of your ideas for implementing blogs in the classroom? Any favorites you read about in the article that you think might be feasible?
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