I am thinking that I may begin by having my students do a form of reading response. I think the easiest and best way to teach and learn about blogging simultaneously would be for me to read a book to my class. I could post a question or comment and ask my students to respond. I think the discussions that could spawn from this type of communication would be very valuable to reading comprehension.
I am also thinking that a blog would be an excellent place to showcase student writing. Students are apprehensive when it comes to writing and I often have to wonder if this is something that I convey to them. I, too, am an apprehensive writer so having this showcase would help.
Inviting parents to view our blogs would also be an effective means of communication. I think this would be helpful for those parents who work and are not able to get into the school on a regular basis. It would be one more way to keep them informed.
A few other thoughts:
- weekly assignments
- specific projects
- field trips
- helpful websites
Being a 4th grade teacher as well, I think your idea of using your blog with reading/literature would be extremely useful. You could post a question or comment, and then throughout the week, set expectations of when students should respond.
ReplyDeleteAnother idea I had for you was to start literature circles through your blog. There are many ideas out there on how to run a lit circle, but what I do now is each night, students are assigned a job to complete upon reading. They may be assigned "Discussion Director," where they have to come up with 5 critical thinking questions to pose to their group, or "Vocabualy Enricher," who is responsible for finding and defining 5 new words that came up in that reading. Typically I give students about 15-20 for discussions at the begninng of class, but you could have this done completely through a blog and eliminate that class time all together. Also, this would be a great way for you, as the teacher, to assess the work that was done. Lots of possibilities!
The implication to your idea of using your blog to post assignments and projects is the repetitiveness. I'd hate for parents to feel like they have one more website they have to look at to make sure their child has done everything. Instead, the reading blog would be student driven, but also allow parents to check in and see what kind of work the class is doing.
Thank you for the great ideas, Megan!
DeleteI think the idea of displaying student work on the blog is an excellent idea. Students love to see their own work on display. By doing this, they would also be able to share with friends and family members that may not be able to view their work otherwise. I plan on using my blog to do the same thing. I thought it would be really neat to have my students take pictures of recipes they make at home so we can share with each other over the summer and school breaks.
ReplyDeleteI think sharing recipes would be very nice. It would incorporate family time too since the students would be cooking with their families.
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