Celebrating New Bloggers

Thank you so much to Margaret Simon who hosts the DigiLit Sunday round up.  Please check out her website to read about how other educators are using technology in their classrooms.

As much as I love my new job as a literacy coach, I REALLY miss having my own classroom where I can explore technology and digital reading and writing with my own students.  However, there is a good side to all of this, because instead of working with 24 or so students, I am able to work with students in my whole building.  I felt a little bit like a rock star Thursday morning when a first grader asked me (with a big ole grin on his face), "Are you the blogging teacher?  When are you coming into our room?"  I was happy to let him know that I'd be there later in the day.

I had met with their teacher, Carol,  a few weeks ago to plan how we would introduce blogging to these young writers.  They have a good workshop routine set up, and they were ready to try something new.  Carol's been wanting to blog with her students for some time, but wasn't sure where to start.  Thinking back to my own experience  of beginning blogging with my  third graders, I recalled mayhem and chaos as I jumped in without really thinking through the whole process.  I wanted Carol's experience to be a little smoother.

I shared Cathy Mere's article from Choice Literacy about shared blogging.  If you are a member of Choice Literacy, you will be able to download the article.  It's full of useful information.  I went into the first grade classroom and we started by looking at some mentor blogs.  (Isn't that what we do when we introduce a new genre study to our students?)

I shared a few blogs from Edudemic's 30 Incredible Kids Blogs and we charted what we noticed.

• Blogs can be about different things.
• There are pictures.
• The pictures match the words.
• There is a title that tells about the story.
• People can leave comments.

Who has an idea for a blog?

I then gave them a few minutes to share what they might want to blog about.  They eagerly shared their ideas...fishing, brothers and sisters, school, pets, grandmas and grandpas, dangerous animals, etc.  They were excited to say the least.  I explained that we would so several blogs together before they learned how to write their own.  

I went back a week later so that we could do a shared writing of our first blog.  They wanted to blog about choosing Just Right books because they've been working on that in their classrooms.  I stopped in that morning to take some photos during their independent reading time so that I could put them into the blog post.  

Display in the hall shows how first graders choose Just Right books.  Sharing it on the blog allows students' thinking to be shared with a larger audience.

When I arrived, they were seated at their meeting area, ready to go.  I brought the Kidblog site up on the Smart Board and explained the dashboard.  Together, we decided on a good title, and they helped me compose the post.  We were able to reread, revise, and add some photos before hitting the publish button.

I will be updating this blog with the link to Mrs. Klochak's blog.  Unfortunately, Kidblog is down right now.  I invite you to check back and get the link so that you can leave a comment on their blog.