I've thought about setting up a blog spot for my students many times. I've toyed with the idea of creating a space for them to discuss our poetry, mythology, and class novel units. I really like the idea of having a place for my students to publish their work. They always work harder and with more effort when they know it's not just for my eyes.
I think that the first blog my students would write would be answering and then responding to a simple journal-type question. Most of my students are familiar with the social networking spaces like myspace.com and facebook.com, but blogging (for our benefit) would be more educational. We'd start slowly at first to get the hang of the layout and format required, but I would eventually want our blog to showcase their work.
Blogging would be most beneficial in sharing ideas between all seventh English grade students and classes and possibly from other seventh graders within the district. Students would build some amazing verbal skills as they practiced their grammar via the web and real life situations. They will be using these learned skills for life!
Any helpful tips from those who have also had the pleasure of beginning a blog with their own students? Have you found anything that has really worked?
I have yet to use blogging in my classroom, but I can definitely see where grammar would be come an important part of the students' lives. It would be embarrassing for them to be corrected by a peer, but it might very well have a more positive impact on their personal editing skills. I constantly have to remind my students to edit their posts and writing before submitting. Blogging could be a way to get them to practice editing. My only concern would be how to keep them from using their text spelling that they seem to love so much.
ReplyDeleteStudents using their text spelling is also a concern of mine as I see it in the writing they hand in to me. I didn't know I needed to state explicitly that their use of this spelling is inappropriate.
ReplyDeleteStudents will use the rules that they encounter in their everyday lives in the classroom as well because they do not know any better. I feel like I have to explain even the simplest ideas to my students, ideas and rules that I would expect everyone to understand by common sense, but those rules do not apply anymore. The media have become the teachers of etiquette and protocol now instead of it being the parents when I was a child. Unfortunately, the media giant does not live by the same rules that we do and does not value the teachings that we would instill in our students. So, it is left to us to redirect and in some cases completely retrain our students to be proper, respectful human beings. Does anyone else see that or have experiences that make them feel this burden?
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