Scaffolding Blogging
When visiting the Russell Street School's site I noticed that as the students passed from grade to grade they became more involved in the daily blogging activities. I started off by looking at the activities from the youngest grade and found that they were all teacher-led or created. I then skipped around some of the other grades and found that as the students matured they were the ones more often publishing content. I can only imagine that the level of involvement at the higher grades was due to the mentoring and scaffolding at the lower grades. Here are my thoughts on some of those activities
Little Einsteins- this is the youngest group at the school and they still have a blog! The teachers post photos with captions of the day's activities including mishaps and accomplishments on the playground. Parents then are able to see firsthand as well as comment on the activities in the classroom. Much of this has to do with good citizenship.
Room 4- This is a group of 1st and 2nd graders, Again most of the content is produced by the teacher and is usually a snippet from the day's lesson or a picture of the class. But there is also content produced by students as writing assignments of a few sentences. This often is a reflection by a student of an in-class activity.
78or's Got Talent- This appears to be 4th or 5th-grade students and there is a major increase in the student use of the blog. Students post pictures and videos of themselves and include descriptions of the post. These descriptions tell what the activity is, what the success criteria is, as well as give their reflection on the activity. There is also a huge increase in the students commenting on the posts.
Final observation- The last thing that I noticed is that many of the classrooms have not kept up with blogging this past year, or at least have not maintained the same amount of posts as the previous years. I am curious why this would be? I'm wondering if it was a schoolwide push that later lost traction or if there is a new focus that the school is taking. I am also wondering if the use of blogging continues to decline in the younger classrooms if in the higher grades they will use it less as well.
Your thoughts are welcomed!
I also wondered if blogging was a schoolwide push that lost it's momentum or as with many schoolwide pushes lost the spearhead. I could imagine teachers taking this and running and I could image many teachers trying to run the other way. It is another time commitment on the part of the teacher in all grade levels.
ReplyDeleteTime I think would be the biggest factor! I also wonder if maybe they have found something even better.
DeleteI also noticed that the posts in the younger grades were primarily teacher-driven, but that the older kids seemed to be posting for themselves. I really enjoyed seeing the pictures from the 8-10 year old groups and their commentary. I think that this is a great idea for sharing with the community and supporting student authorship!
ReplyDeleteThat is an area that I would like to improve in, so this may be something I look into. I want to get more information out but I also want my students to take the lead!
DeleteI agree with your thoughts and also noticed the scaffolding, which I felt I could apply to my classroom this year as I add blogging (start slow and then add more student created responses). With any new initiative, it is difficult to keep up sometimes. I know that I created my first classroom website on my own a few years ago and did well keeping it up until later in the year. It was difficult with everything else going on to keep it updated. This might be something to reflect on and make a more conscientious effort in making sure to set a level of involvement. Sometimes making it so that students have to post a couple times a month might help. Although it might take awhile to get comfortable enough to make students more involved, as teachers it is difficult to keep up with everything, so delegating some parts to students would help. Many times that helps with student engagement anyway, making the classroom environment even better.
ReplyDeleteAfter reflecting, I'm thinking about also having my students conference with me first before posting to the blog. I've had a few students that have used social media as a negative platform including google classroom.
DeleteI also noticed a lapse in posts which is what made me wonder if the blogs were once a required thing. I also was curious if there was a PD training on using blogs and teachers were motivated but lost interest in posting. Lastly, I think the lapse in posts could be do to it being too hard to maintain.
ReplyDeleteEven if this is the case, some people found something that really worked for them and their students. I think sometimes I am too critical of school-wide pushes/ PD. If it works for some then that is another tool they can use!
DeleteI noticed the scaffolding as well. I wonder if the teacher could involve the younger students more to help alleviate the time issue.
ReplyDeleteThat could be beneficial! I wonder if there is an app that would be easy for the students to use for that purpose... maybe like an education instragram.
DeleteI think the time it would take to have that intensive of a blog would be a lot. It takes the teachers a lot of time to allow time for students to blog, but also time to moderate what they write. I noticed they were using other communication techniques as well. That would just add to the time commitment.
ReplyDeletethe time commitment makes me wonder if it is worth it or not. I think I would like to pilot this with my 8th graders and then see what I think.
DeleteAlyssa,
ReplyDeleteI read your comment back to Rachael, and I thought it was a great idea to conference with students about blogging. This could be very beneficial, especially when first beginning to utilize blogs in the classroom.
Philomena :)
Thanks! Conferencing also allows me to interact with some of my students that don't feel comfortable telling me when they need help, so it is important for me to find ways of offering that one on one time.
ReplyDelete