Blogging

I have been developing tasks that I want to complete with the students in our school for the upcoming year. I not only teach regular classes, but teach technology. We are a unique school, and we are slow to accept technology. This is due to the fact of determining how technology can remediate versus compensate. We are focused on teaching skills, so look for tools to remediate.

However, I am looking for the current tools to use with our students. It's a fine line. Having taking up blogging myself, I am interested in introducing it to our upper school students with the help of the writing department head, with anonymity. Giving them a voice, but not compromising their identity on the internet. Love the posts I have discovered on the best ways to do this.

I teach in the lower school for my regular classes, and was trying to figure how I could incorporate this with my writing class this year, without having computers available on a regular basis. I found a wonderful blog about using paper blogs with students as an introduction to blogging. I am so excited to try this with my class this year. It gives an authentic purpose to their writing, and it also incorporates some creativity.

I am dedicating my main bulletin board to writing, namely blogs. Each student will design a background, (pics to come later) and then as they finalize a piece or complete a journal topic, it will be posted on their blog.

I thought of renaming them to plogs (paper logs), however this does not keep the tie over I was looking for. Then I realized, they would be bulletin board logs, so the word blog still fits.

I look forward to posting the fruits of their labor when school starts next week. Incorporating technology is all about adapting to the needs of the student. I look forward to seeing how I can adapt this great tool with an array of ages and abilities.