Blogging Bluejays

At the beginning of the year I got my students blogging using KidBlog.org.  It is a safe way for my students to practice using digital citizenship.  What I'm thrilled with is that it provides wonderful discussion of what we should and should not do on the Internet.  They've even made mistakes and luckily they made them with me over their shoulder which then lead to some awesome conversations.  I'm so glad they're able to make mistakes now rather than later.

Every year in the library the students get to hear all the books nominated for a Golden Sower Award: an award given to books in age leveled categories for books that ROCK!!  To keep track of the books that we've read the students created a post on their blogs that kept a running track of a couple of things.  They were to keep track of what the book was about, their favorite part, and on a scale from 1-10 (1 meaning it didn't float my boat and 10 being the most awesomest book ever--I want to scream on top of a mountain how good it is).  Then after we read all the books they created a blog post called "Favorite GS" in which they wrote about their favorite Golden Sower Nominee.

I then went to our settings and adjusted them so that ANYONE could comment on them.  This way we can really discuss how important it is to have an audience.  I used the analogy: imagine you're getting ready for your school music concert. You're all dressed up, you arrive at the high school, you get up on stage ready to sing your hearts out...and no one is there.  That lead to some great discussion of how you'd feel without having someone there to watch you.  That is so true with blogging. No audience, no fun! So, I went onto our school Twitter account (which is synced with our school Facebook page) and asked our followers to follow the link to the 3rd grade blog and 4th grade blogs and comment!  They have gotten a LOT of comments, and the kids are so excited about it.  They LOVE seeing if a "guest" commented on their blog.

My next lesson I'd love to do with them is to work with another class and exchange comments/posts.  So, if you know anyone that uses Kidblog.org and would be up for working with the 3rd and 4th grade please let me know! I really would love to get them excited about communicating with students around the country or the world!