Currently, each student in my class hosts a blog on Kidblogs.org. Kidblogs is a safe and easy blogging site for students. There are various settings that allow the teacher to manage visibility and access. Each child enters his or her blog with a password. Students can write blogs, read the posts of their peers and respond with comments.
Originally, I thought that we would use these blogs like we traditionally used Reader’s Notebooks–as a place to discuss our reading history, habits and strategies. As my students developed their skills in blogging, I saw how the blogs could be a repository for all our thinking. Now, students use their blogs to post book reviews, respond to text, share new learning in inquiry projects and ask questions of our blogging community.
My students love to blog and truly view themselves as members of a global blogging community. In the past few months we’ve received comments and feedback from around the world. As I thought about all that my students have done with blogs, I wanted to make sure they understood the purpose of blogging. So, I asked them to reflect on why we blog.
A few responses:
“When you blog, you tell about your work and what you do at school.”
“The reason you blog is so you can share your learning around the Earth. It’s also very interesting!”
“If you live in another country you could blog, only it would have to be in a different language.”
“You blog in order to learn from other people.”
“A blog is a way you tell friends where they can get info and how to share it.”
“Blogging is sharing information with others!”
These responses showed me that my students do indeed, understand why we blog! They know that we blog to share information and to learn from others. They also know that their blogs are a forum for self-expression. Through blogging they have learned that their thinking and learning matters. They recognize themselves as active agents in a digital world. I hope that their current understanding of blogging lays a solid foundation for future explorations in technology.
It’s an exciting time to be a young learner…onward, bloggers!