Blogging

Device: Internet capable devices

SAMR Model: Redefinition

Description

Blogs can be used by teachers and/or students to inspire thinking, encourage student writing, self-reflection, self-assessment, and collaboration with other students. Teachers can use blogging sites to post prompts, encourage creative writing, or teach concepts. One of the biggest benefits for K-2 students may be that students can use the blog to practice writing in a 21st century setting.

Students can write their own blog posts that can be accessed by students, the teacher, and other readers. Classes can connect with other classes around the world, learning more about people of different states, countries, and cultures. Teachers can hold book discussions on the blog where students contribute their ideas, post sentence stems, or assignments. Students can answer questions about a story, practice typing and using their sight words in a sentence, or write their own story using their writing strategies.

Students can read their peer's thoughts, stories, or other creations on the blog. They can post comments leading to a deeper understanding, ask questions, and learn from one another. Many blogs give the option for the teacher to approve comments before they are visible, allowing for appropriate content to be posted.

Blogs also allow for multimedia content to be posted. Students could add photos to their blog, links to YouTube videos, songs, or other safe and appropriate content they have found on the Internet. This allows for a deeper connection to the content as well as a deeper understanding. Instead of just writing about something that starts with the letter M, for example, students could include pictures of their markers. Students could practice writing the letter M on a piece of paper or in an app and include a picture or screenshot. Students could also post a video of HaveFunTeaching's Letter M Video. Blogs allow for students to create content and build higher-order thinking skills.

There are many different blog options that are both paid and free. A teacher would need to research the different options and choose one that would meet their needs.

Differentiation

Blogs can be used in many different ways to meet many different learning purposes. Teachers can post prompts to specific students, aimed at their learning goals. Teachers could create blogs for specific reading groups, discussing the content they have been reading and work on writing goals of the group.

Student blogs are based on a student's particular set of skills and the skills they are working to achieve. The whole class may write about a specific topic, such as a read aloud story. The amount they write, the prompt they answer, or the focus of their post, may differ based on a student's abilities. A student who is a beginning writer, for example, may need a sentence stem and then write one word on their own. Another student may be able to write three sentences about what happened first in the story, next, and last. A different student may write a paragraph about the story. One activity can lead to individualized learning for the whole class. Each student can make growth through this as well as reflect and self-assess their learning by reviewing their blog post. They can revise their writing or wording as they see fit. Students can also learn from others by reading their posts, commenting, or discussing it with that student.

Blogs allow for teachers or other students to post multimodal material. Teachers could extend a student's thinking by providing a link to a news article that relates to their topic. Someone could post a video that goes more in depth on a student's idea or question. The possibilities, really, are endless.

Comprehension

Blogs help students build comprehension skills through their writing. They are able to take their ideas and put it down in digital writing. Students may practice writing their blog, first, on paper. That is a great pre-writing skill. Students who are not familiar or comfortable with typing may just take a photo of the writing and post it on their blog. Students then can reflect on their work by re-reading their blog post and making revisions as necessary.

Teachers can assign activities through the blog that build on a student's needed area of comprehension skills. Teachers could provide students with beginning, middle, and end sentence stems. One could assign a writing project where students need to write about the main character or write a story from a different character's perspective. Students could create a video answering one of these prompts and post it on the blog. They could also use different apps such as MyStory, BookCreator, or ChatterPix to meet this criteria.

Possible Downfalls

Blogs may be a hard tool for primary students to use. Some blogs require students to have an email address to be invited to the class. My kindergartners have an email address through my school but we do not use it. I worry that logging in would also be an issue if a username and password is required. This may be doable if you are in a 1:1 student to device ratio by keeping them signed in. One way around this would be having a username and password that the whole class uses to access the blog and they just sign their name at the bottom.

[Have Fun Teaching]. (2011, February 1). Letter M song video [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_2992557467&feature=iv&src_vid=Vc9UalpiDLo&v=YiK7IL0kqd0