I have jumped in to the second year of blogging with my grade six class. It has been a much smoother start this year since I have some experience from last year and I am excited by the possibilities for year two.
I am trying to use my class blog as my main communication tool with parents this year. I have had many different communication tools over the years from a paper newsletter to a class website. It is my hope that the blog will replace all of these forms of communication. Monthly newsletters are posted on the blog and I have included a Google Calendar that includes all of the school and class events. My goal for this year is to help parents subscribe to our class blog and their child’s blog. It is my hope that if the parents subscribe to our blogs, they will be better informed and more involved.
I also would like to make more connections through our blog. My class had “blogging budddies” with another grade six class at the end of last year. My students were so excited when they would get a comment from their “buddy” and worked hard to produce quality work to share with him/her. It is my hope that if we make more connections, that my students will produce quality work that they would want to share with a global audience and increase student engagement.
My concern at this point is getting my students to use comments appropriately. I have many students, despite frequent reminders, who use the comment feed to do silly comments or “shout outs” as I like to call them. I am not sure how to get them to stop doing this? Does anyone have any suggestions on how to do this?
Leigh Cassell Consulting 