There are two questions that are helpful when considering authoring a blog:
- What would I write about?
- Am I able to keep up with it?
There are a handful of models that could work well for you professionally, depending on your personality, classroom, and writing style. Think about how any of these might fit you. They range from individual professional, to classroom professional/student, to individual student.
Professional Discourse
An aspect of being a master learner is the reflection and revision process. The use of a professional blog can be a good outlet for discussing professional experiences and learning. Beyond simply writing for the journaling and refinement of your own thoughts, this process can open up the door for opportunities to connect with others who have similar interests, concerns, challenges, and victories. Allowing for comments of others can invite outside insights into what might have otherwise been a one-way conversation. Reading the professional comments of others can be a good way to connect with the real professional experiences of other educators in shoes a lot like yours. This is especially beneficial if you’re only specialist in your field in your building or district.
Remember, of course, that what you write online should never be considered private or anonymous. Instead think of this as an informal addendum to your resume. Be professional. (See also: Professional Safety Online)
Related reading: “Reluctant Bloggers”
Community/Student Communication (Newsletter)
As an educator, you have two audiences with a vested interest in what’s happening in your classroom: students and community/parents.
A blog for students might include homework and class notes, study guides, and extended reflection and dialogue on subject materials. Comments can be used to offer students a chance to respond to any of the above topics. Keep in mind that most blogging tools have the ability to moderate comments to various degrees, so you can retain control of what appears on your blog.
Community and parents are your second potential audience. Your blog can be a means to better communicate with those outside your school on a regular basis through updates on projects, information on what’s being taught, and highlights on school successes. Since the expectations for substance are different for a blog post versus a newsletter, it is easy to quickly post information as it comes available, while still retaining the option to include longer, more detailed articles about your classroom when the occasion arises.
Student blogging
In just the same manner that you can become the author/owner of a blog, your students can also become authors. I’m a big fan of mediums that allow students to produce work for a real audience instead of a red pen. Blogging allows the student to write for a potentially unlimited audience as well as receiving feedback from readers. Just like any writing activity, students will produce their best work when writing about topics of personal interest.
This is, admittedly, one of the more difficult blogging undertakings in that there’s a fair amount of work in moderating and supervising student blogging projects. I would suggest that any school-sanctioned blogging activity be structured such that there are requirements and guidelines for publishing. Again, more in the next post.
Be sure that you have clearance (i.e., student release forms) and that reasonable safety precautions are taken before getting started with such a project.
Student-contributed newsletter (shared blog)
A hybrid model of authorship may work best in many classrooms. This model would feature a single class blog where the teacher invites individual students to submit postings for publication. Possible topics could include:
- a daily report of classroom activities;
- commentary on current content matter;
- links to current events that tie-in to classwork; and
- share student work sample, etc.
The downside is that there is slightly less student ownership than the “Student Blogger” approach mentioned above, while the upside is that the management needs are significantly reduced.
The process here could simply involve the student typing their post in Notepad where the teacher will later review the post and copy it to the classroom blog (I recommend Notepad here because programs like Word tend to bring a lot of extra back-end garbage with it when copied and pasted).
I think this is what I would be most likely to use if I were still in the classroom.
Which fit is best for you? EduBlogs, which I’ll discuss in my next post, has a nice list of “10 Ways to Use Your EduBlog to Teach” that might give you a few more ideas related to this and the other models.
Tomorrow: Two blogging tools worth a look
Image citation: Orbitgal, “bulletin board” Orbitgal’s Photostream. 5 Oct 2007. 9 Apr 2008 <http://flickr.com/photos/orbitgal/1492216791/>.
I’ve been revisiting blogging tools lately with some of the afterschool classes we’ve held. My go-to blog for classrooms has always been Landmark Project’s BlogMeister (classblogmeister.com). I like it well for it’s ability to tightly regulate student publishing and comments and limit the audience, particularly for elementary users. The interface is a little clunky, but it works very well. It’s easy to set up students in your class with their own blog and I feel generally comfortable using it with even young students because of the moderation options.
Lately, I’m also becoming more impressed with Edublogs (edublogs.org), particularly based on the improvements they’ve made. Sporting a clean interface using powerful blogging software, WordPress - the same software I use to author this blog - they’ve created a professional blogging environment that’s education-oriented and still plays well with our filters. Furthermore, you can directly upload photos, audio, and video to your Edublogs space which is a really helpful option not present in BlogMeister.
