Students as bloggers!

I'm very excited to see that, this time, I didn't even have to spread the news--students did it themselves! We officially entered the world of blogging TODAY! Not everyone has had a turn to post on his/her blog yet, so I was planning to wait until tomorrow to make this announcement. But when I checked my email I had notifications that parents and other loved ones were already commenting on their child's blog! Yippee--that means that many students went home and talked about it. That's a good sign. :-)

Today I taught everyone how to log-in to their blogs using the Kidblog app on the iPad. They can also post from any computer, and they can access their blogs through this blog (right-hand sidebar) or by using the URL http://kidblog.org/MrsSorensonsClass-4/. (They can do this at home too, any time.) Students worked with their literacy partners today, and one person was the author while the other person was the helper. Tomorrow, they will switch roles. By the end of the day tomorrow, look for every student to have their first post on Kidblog. Hooray!

Exciting Blogging News!

Students will begin their foray into the world of blogging next week with two exciting experiences! We are now a part of a group called the Primary Blogging Community, which was created by a primary grade teacher in Ontario, Canada. This is an eight-week experience which will connect us with three other first grade classrooms--two in the United States and one in Canada. The four weeks of the project are a chance to practice making comments on other classroom blogs. Students will learn how to comment on a blog in a meaningful and appropriate way. We will visit each teacher's blog and leave comments for the class about the activities they do. We will do this as a whole class experience. The second week will be our turn to receive comments about this class blog. I'm excited to read what students/teachers in other classrooms have to say! 

After each classroom blog has had their turn for comments, we turn to student blogs. For four weeks, each class will have a turn to be the focus class and we will leave comments on the student blogs for that class. This means that it's definitely time to get our student blogs up and running, and this will be a focus next week in first grade. Each student has an account on KidBlog.com, and your child's blog link is directly linked to our blog on the right-hand sidebar. Next week, everyone will have a chance to write their first blog post, and I will alert you when this is done so you can check it out! If you have an iPad, there is a free KidBlog app too!

I found this great resource on ReadingRockets.org (a great website for reading/writing info) about student blogging and its value in the classroom and at home. I hope you find it useful! As always, please contact me for more information or questions.