A discussion about a shift in the nature of blogging has inspired me to reflect on the role blog comments still play in a classroom blogging program. I share 8 tips for teaching and promoting quality commenting with students.
Commenting
Blogging and the Literacy Curriculum
To realise the many educational benefits of blogging and ensure your program has an extended life-span, blogging needs to be prioritised and planned for. It should to be integrated into the curriculum; busy classrooms rarely have time for “add ons”.
There’s Blogging and There’s Blogging…
Blogging is becoming increasingly common in schools, but are all blogging programs helping to improve student learning outcomes? This is an issue I was discussing with a member of my professional learning network recently. There seems to be two main schools of thought on educational blogging programs: The unrestricted program: this may involve all students […]
A Guide to Involving Parents in Your Class Blog
This is an update of some of the posts I’ve written in the past about getting parents involved in blogging. About parents and blogs One of the many benefits of having a class blog is the strengthening of home-school relationships. A class blog can provide a virtual window into the classroom. After having a class blog for […]
Developing Blogging Skills: Simple Rubric
I’ve been toying with the idea of creating a blogging scope and sequence for a while. However, something about that idea makes me uncomfortable. I don’t like the thought of limiting blogging skills to certain age levels. For example, a number of my grade two students were sourcing and attributing Creative Commons materials for blog […]
Making Educational Blogging Work for You
Originally published as a guest post on Free Technology for Teachers. I was introduced to educational blogging in 2008. A twenty minute tutorial by a Department of Education staff member was enough to ignite my interest and, four years on, blogging is something that really works in my classroom. When I look back at how I […]
Parents Shining in the Blogging Community
Educational blogging is so much more meaningful and rewarding when it occurs within a blogging community. It takes time and persistence to establish your own blogging community. When I first started blogging with my class in 2008, we received the odd comment from a student or parent but there was no other audience or interaction. […]
Quality Blogging and Commenting Meme
If you are interested in educational blogging, Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano has written an outstanding series of posts on her Langwitches Blog. It is called Learning About Blogs FOR Your Students and covers seven areas: Part I: Reading Part II A: Writing Part II B: Student Writing Part III: Commenting Part IV: Connecting Part V: Reciprocating […]
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Memorable Student Blogging Moment
Bianca is a grade three student who I introduced to blogging last year. She is definitely a success story, having produced weekly posts on BB’s Awesome Blog for a year and a half now. That’s 86 posts! Her success is partially due to the fabulous support of her family. Bianca has a solid following from […]
QuadBlogging Video
QuadBlogging is something I have blogged about here earlier this year. The term QuadBlogging was coined by David Mitchell. The concept: four blogging classes come together and learn about one another one week at a time. Each week a different blog in the quad is the focus and the other three classes take the time […]
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Attracting Blog Comments
There is no denying that students get a lot more out of blogging when they receive comments. Comments provide feedback, encouragement, advice, positive reinforcement, learning, conversation and new ways of thinking among other things. 2012 is the fifth year I have been blogging with my class and I have learnt that there are some tips […]
The Power of Twitter
In the last few weeks Kelly Jordan and I have been speaking to teachers and school leaders at the VITTA conference, ICON conference and our own school about the power of Twitter. In our presentation we shared how we use Twitter every day as a form of ongoing, personalised and invaluable professional development. We stressed […]
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15 Blogging Tips for Students and Teachers
This post was originally published last year as 10 Blogging Tips for Students and Teachers. Note: I no longer update this website. As I regularly help students and other teachers set up their blogs, I find myself giving lots of little tips that I have picked up on my own blogging journey. My list of […]
Family Blogging Afternoon
One of the many benefits of having a class blog is the strengthening of home-school relationships. After having a class blog for a number of years, I have come to realise that you can’t leave parent participation to chance. Parents needs to be educated and regularly encouraged and invited to be part of your class […]
QuadBlogging
Update: David Mitchell launched the official QuadBlogging site in June 2011. Click here to find it. This is the place to go to sign up for quad blogging and find out all about it. **** If you’re on Twitter you may have heard the term QuadBlogging being thrown around lately. I first heard about it […]