Teacher Feature and Technology Across the District

Technology is being used in exciting and interesting ways across our district. From 3D printing, to district benchmarks given in SchoolNet , to connecting classrooms using Skype, teachers are inspiring students to create and collaborate. 

Teacher Feature: Holly Hobbs, Enka Middle School-Student Blogging and Symbaloo

What student blogging platform did you use and why?

I used www.KidBlog.org for my platform. I researched two other blogging sites, WikiSpaces and Blogger, but KidBlog provided the best security and identity protection for the students, as well as teacher controls so that I could monitor students' posts and comments.

Can you share your student blogging expectations for students?

    My expectations were very simple: 

             1. You must post at least 1 word every week

             2. No grammar/syntax rules apply

             3. Students have 15 minutes at the beginning of each Computer Lab day to write                      their blog and check others' blogs, before completing the daily tasks.

How do you showcase student blogs?

I created a Symbaloo page to display the blogs, and I asked students to e-mail me their favorite selfie or avatar to put as the icon for their blog. To ensure student safety, no student used their full name, just a nickname that they went by on their blog. Students were also asked not to use other students' full names, when writing about others.

What kind of impact has student blogging blogging had in your classroom?

Students appreciate writing to a "true audience," each other, and they look forward to writing to their peers. I choose one person from each class to be my "comment moderator," and after they finish their assigned tasks, they sit at my teacher computer and approve comments. They are taught how to look for potentially disrespectful comments, and how to go back to the original blog post to read the context of the comment. They love the job of Comment Moderator, and they handle it with respect and responsibility.

Anything else you think teachers should know?

At first, letting go of teacher-directed prompts and specific length/grammar rules was scary. It felt like a loss of control, and I wasn't sure that I trusted my students with that much freedom. But I soon learned that the kids really enjoyed the absence of rules. They were writing to a "true audience," each other, and soon they started becoming self-aware of their grammar/punctuation, spelling, and the content of their blogs. They knew that their peers were reading their posts and commenting on them, so they put more effort into the blogs. Yes, there were a few that wrote one word each week to meet the minimum requirements. But the majority of my students looked forward to blogging each week, and even blogged at home/on weekends.

If anyone has questions or would like help setting up classroom blogs, my e-mail address is holly.hobbs@bcsemail.org