How Student Blogs Fit With Classroom Writing
Classroom Technology Lets Students Blog for Regular Writing Practice
Aug 26, 2009
Classroom technology can incorporate student blogs for all sorts of reasons. Some classroom blogging keeps track of current events; some students blog their own news stories; some use educational blogs to publish fiction or poetry. For as many reasons people have found to write and publish, there are that many types of blogs. Here are a few ideas for creative ways to incorporate blogging into classroom writing.
Personal Narrative Student Blogs
Most students have fun relating stories from their daily experiences. Additionally, writing personal narratives is a skill addressed in almost every set of writing standards from Kindergarten through middle school.
Students Blog Summaries of Learning
Writing summaries of what students learn each day is another great idea for student blogs. People tend to remember less than 10% of what they hear in a lecture or get from a text. To write a summary requires a student to dissect the information and recreate it in a new form. This process of making connection to learning and taking ownership of the knowledge seems to be essential to memory. As the old proverb says, “To teach is to twice learn.”
Students Blog Current Events
Blogs are a great place to gather and comment on current events. Students can review major news sites and collect photos, videos, and sound bites. These artifacts can easily be inserted on a blog site, to which students can add maps, opinions, analysis, critical review, and calls for action.
Essay Student Blogs
Teachers can assign students topics for essays as part of a writing curriculum. Essay prompts can be found through a search engine at sites like Collegeboard.com and sat-essay.net.
Students can even use the blog to practice writing timed essays. Not only is the SAT essay a difficult hurdle for most high school students, the initial college application almost entirely depends on how well a student can write a thoughtful essay. Students can make use of their blogs to practice and get feedback.
Persuasive Argument Student Blogs
Students can use their blogs to write persuasive arguments. The persuasive texts can be sent to the appropriate recipients (state representatives, businesses, etc.), but they can also be collected on a blog.
Creative Writing in Student Blogs
Students can keep a creative and humorous blog from another perspective. They might choose any point of view from a pet hamster to a 17th century explorer.
Student Blogs Connect Learners
Many students use their blogs to read and comment on other blogs from around the world. It is fairly common for a blogger to respond to comments left on his or her own site. One idea is to keep a blog that maps a student’s thoughts about the blogs he reads.
Teachers can check out related articles covering how to start student blogs , how to help students craft polished educational blogs , and more fun ideas for classroom technology integration such as wikis and audio or video podcasts.
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