Classroom Blogging

As all of you teachers have noticed by now, its almost the end of another school year. And there is that age old question being asked in classrooms around the nation, "What can we do that to keep these kids from going crazy and taking me with them?" Well, I went to an amazing workshop this school year presented by Alan November about preparing students for the digital world and creating global learners. I've been very excited about plans to try "flipping" my classroom next year, but that is going to have to be a project for this summer. In the meantime, technology has been a sanity saver the past few weeks. We have started two big projects; making IMovie math trailers, and we have started a class blog. I wanted a way to review concepts we have covered this year, integrate a little technology and have a whole lot of fun.

I had already added the app kidblog on my IPad, so I decided to give it a try. We spent a few days going over internet safety. We also took some time to discuss how important it is for us to use proper spelling, punctuation, and grammar in our blogs. After that, I turned them lose! Each day I have been posting a question and letting them respond to them. I haven't let them start posting their own blogs just yet, and I am not certain that we will reach that point this year. So far the results have been incredible. The kids are thrill about coming to math class. They see the importance of writing things that make sense and and correct. They enjoy getting posts from other teachers, family members, and friends. And they just LOVE tracking our site visitors to see where we are getting viewed. I can see so many ways this can be used for next year. I plan on starting blogging much earlier next year. How do you use blogging with your class?

Oh and btw, if you could check out our site and leave a comment, you would make 53 4th graders very  happy.  http://kidblog.org/MsEcholsClass/