About Blogging with Students

My Answer to S. Wyatts


 

 

 

     As a contribution to the  topic  Blogging safely in the big wide world  that will be presented by Sue Wyatts at an English and Literacy teachers’ conference, in Hobart, next July, I’ll try to answer some of the questions she suggests.

  • Why did you choose the blogging platform you are using?
  1. I found Edublogs just by chance, while surfing the net in search of tips on education and technology, back in the summer of 2006. I set up a blog without really understanding what it was all about; I used it primarily as a “dead archive” to keep my personal work that could be shared both with students and school staff. As there was no live project energising this initiative, I soon exchanged the blog for a wiki and started to actually work with my 5th grades.
  2.  It was only in May 2008 that I discovered, trough The Edublogger,  what real blogging was about. It was then that I really chosed this blogging platform, as the new discoveries I was doing were opening a new horizon to me and I felt newbies were strongly supported and encouraged to join the web2.0 world, not only by both the other fellow bloggers and blogging initiatives such as the 31 day Comment Challenge but also mainly by the generous effort of Sue Waters herself.
  • What have you found most easy or difficult in blogging with students?
  1. As almost all my kids  are  Portuguese and 10 t0 12 years old, their knowledge of English language is still incipient, so translation issues have been our main difficulty; 
  2. Besides, as blogging is not yet allowed during classes, and, during lunch break, the computers lab is taken by Primary ICT lessons, we gave up trying to use the computer lab and we were compelled to learn and practice blogging mainly as a home work, communicating through msn messenger. Most kids just gave up blogging and just a bunch of pioneers decided to face the challenges. 
  3. The most easy aspect is their genuine interest in the subject it self. I have been advised, at school, to ask permission to set a blogging club, thus obtaining the guarantee of a proper space and time. I’ll try it next year.
  4. Besides, next year, young students coming from Primary School to the 5th grade – 5th grade belongs to Middle School in our country – will bring with them the laptops they have been officially given; hopefully this new situation will fasten the process of giving Internet access to our students, by means of a user name and a password. So far, only teachers can access the school Internet connexion, thus we had only 2 to 5 student laptops present in  each class.
  • What have you done to make sure your students are blogging safely?
  1. I’ve followed the indications of other teachers blogging with students, mainly Miss W’s about being internet savy. 
  2. I gave my students some simple basic rules about not showing personal information that could possibly lead to being identified, such as family names, home address, photos, phone numbers…
  3. I followed Sue Waters advice about using our own g-mail adress with a + sign and the students user name to sign them up as edublogs users or to any other platform.
  4. I’m still learning about it and I’ve deeply appreciated both Keeping Students Cyber Safe and The Rule’s Rule, two great posts S. Wyatt mentioned in I need your Ideas
  • What do you think students get out of blogging?
  1. I think we can’t exaggerate its relevance to enhance students’ digital, writing and other essential skills, as the art of maintaining a conversation and of relating to others in a global perspective.
  2. I can’t resist to mention The Personal Web and Twenty reasons why students should blog as examples of posts where I keep both learning and checking out my own intuition about the importance of  what is at stake.
  3. I believe young bloggers are actively contributing to the rising of a new way of communicating and sharing ideas, feelings, human values, that may change society as we know it.
  • How do you find ways for students to get their global audience?
  1. I usually go ahead and make connections with other student’s blogs by leaving comments and presenting my class blog or one of my students blog, when I see there are some affinities that may enable to mantain a conversation.
  2.  Than I tell my students where I have been and kind of introduce them to their newly found English speaking colleagues.
  3. I encourage them to leave comments on the blogs they visit and to answer the comments they receive; sometimes I must help with the automate translations to keep them more enjoyable to read, or at least more intelligible.
  4. Our participation both on the Students Blogging Competition 08 and the Blogging Challenge 09, as well as being part of Bringing Us Together, has been the main ways to connect with students all over the world.
  5. Lately, I’ve found that Sue Waters page Check Out Class Blogs has turned to be a precious source to visit and connect with new class and students blogs.
  • What recommendations would you give to new teachers to blogging?
  1. I would tell new teachers, first, to be sure they will be allowed to blog during classes, or have special classes to do it at ease. In my country, our learning system is still very teacher centered; our curriculum, for Portuguese lessons, is so extensive, that we have hardly time to meet all that is required, even with  2h15m of weekly class time. 
  2. Then they should be allowed to include their students blogging activities in the assessement “rates” – for instance, we give 75% to written tests and just 5% to home work, which is still unbalanced.
  3.  In my kids case, I recognize that blogging through translations may turn to be a hard task, that takes time at home. I usually let them replace homework by blogging. so that they don’t feel overloaded. But then they must stop blogging, every four weeks, when they are studying for their written tests.
  4. Most important, I would recommend new teachers to become part of a blogging platform suited for educational purposes, as Edublogs. They will learn precious tips from those “elder” colleagues that have been practicing for a while the noble art of blogging with students in the world wide web.