Blogging in the Core Content Areas
- Be able to create and demonstrate their learning in a variety of ways
- Learn what a blog is
- Be able to use blogging to demonstrate they have met their learning goals in any subject area (math journals, ELA responses, Science notebooks, etc)
- Be able to add comments to their teacher's blog so their teacher will be able to assess their learning (This can be used as an exit ticket to an activity.)
Blog: Shortened for “weblog” it is a way to share information online
To prepare for this lesson:
- Teachers should create an account on https://education.weebly.com or https://edublogs.org/
- Students under 13 must have permission from their parents to have a website or their own blog. If teachers do not want to do this they can just have students respond to their own teacher blog.
- Teachers can make these secure sites public or private.
- Watch this video tutorial on how to create a student blog on Weebly
- Watch this video tutorial on how to create student blogs on Edublogs
- Teachers should create a blog post that students can comment on. This could be about blogging or about an activity done during the school day.
See Accommodations Page and Charts on the 21things4students.net site in the Teacher Resources.
Directions for this activity:
- Ask students if they have ever heard of a blog.
- Discuss what a blog is. The website Brainpop has a detailed explanation or Edublogs has detailed information as well.
- Discuss the rules of blogging including not sharing any personal information online and keeping your comments polite and respectful.
- Have students access the teacher’s blog and make a comment on a teacher created open-ended question.
Note: After students get used to commenting on the teacher’s blog they can extend this activity by creating their own blogs. They can use these blogs for extensions to content area assignments. They would also be good for stations or writer's workshop activities.
MITECS: Michigan adopted the "ISTE Standards for Students" called MITECS (Michigan Integrated Technology Competencies for Students) in 2018.
1c.Students use technology to seek feedback that informs and improves their practice and to demonstrate their learning in a variety of ways.
1d. Students understand the fundamental concepts of technology operations, demonstrate the ability to choose, use and troubleshoot current technologies and are able to transfer their knowledge to explore emerging technologies.
Devices and Resources
CONTENT AREA RESOURCES
Students can respond to a story or novel they are reading with a blog. They can also use blogging as journaling.
Students can blog about their integrated art experiences for any of the arts.
Students can blog about their thoughts about problem solving and can reflect on their learning.
Students can blog about a science experiment or blog as a response to informational reading.
Students can blog about places they have been or would like to go to for geography. They can also blog about historical figures or events.
This task card was created by Jacki Zawierucha, Utica Community Schools, January 2018.