One way is through making Blogs a PORTAL WORD WALL. Students and teachers can share new words, interact on ways to use the word or define new words and to also show progress with students vocabulary through the wonderful world of technology where the sources are endless.
Another way in which Blogs can be used is through Social Studies. In 5th grade Social Studies is a huge focus and instead of having the content revolve around history in text books, students can also stay in touch with World News today. Students can use blogging to read about headlines in the world and share the information/new with their followers (classmates.) In addition, using Blogging in Social Studies can open up student's ideas with the ability to share thoughts and read what others have to say about issues today!
Last but not least, blogs are a great place to post homework assignments. This is a way everyone, even the absentees, will never fall behind.
Posts
.gif){kind=small}
I really like the idea of using a blog as a "portal word wall"! This is a great way to address word walls in a unique way. One challenge I see with having students interact on a blog is the fact that you would have to do quite a bit of content/comment monitoring. To address this issue, maybe you can assign one student (a trustworthy student) to "monitor" the blog and let you know of any inappropriate material that is posted. With fifth graders you probably won't have a big problem with inappropriate material, but you never know. You have some really neat ideas!
ReplyDeleteI would imagine 5th graders love to blog. I really like the creative ways you are using or plan to use blogs in your classroom. How many computers do you have in your classroom? Do you use the computers as a center and have the students rotate in order to all have a turn to blog? Also, do you have any special education or ELL students? How can you differentiate the Portal Word Wall blog for this type of student? Is there a way to add sound? Can you post different assignments for different groups of students? Just curious how you would handle this.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of being able to post homework assignments. This provides a nice tool for absent students to be able to keep up with their work, but what if the absent student does not own a computer? Also, how would you determine what news headlines the students were using when reading about world news? Is there anything in the news that you would not allow your 5th grade students to read about?
ReplyDeleteJenn- Thank you for the compliments. I agree with you and love your idea of having a student monitor the blogs for "inappropriate" blogs. I just cannot wait to get this going in my class and once it does I am sure I will be able to experiment different techniques to make this work:)
ReplyDeleteLynnek,
ReplyDeleteI am glad to see how engaged you are in my idea but I am sad to say that I cannot answer some of your questions because I have yet to try this idea in the classroom. However, I can answer the other questions...such as I have 34 5th grade students, they are non Ell but some have just recently placed out of it, I have 2 computers but our school has a labtop cart which we can sign out whenever we like for all students to have a computer. To answer the question on making groups through blogs, I would have three different blogs for the different groups. Hope that answers your questions for now:)
jaghoz,
ReplyDeleteThank you for the compliment and to answer your questions, I would first make sure I know the students who do not or do have a computer at home and from there make the decision to make this an actual routine.
In regards to the headline news, in 5th Grade I would allow the students to read anything that is available to them as long as it has to do with the world. I would first get permission from the guardians but after that I believe they need to be exposed to the real world. Do you agree?
I like that students will have another way to discuss world news, other than in a traditional classroom where students that love to speak publicly can often steal the limelight. Blogging will hopefully give students the opportunity to "think before they speak" that they often do not have when in a classroom debate/discussion. I know that some of my 8th graders still do not think before the words come spilling out of their mouths, so I am sure it is something 5th graders work on as well! How do you think you will ensure that everyone's comments are "heard" respectfully and how will you handle inappropriate behavior that may arise?
ReplyDeleteHolly, I love your point about "thinking before speaking." Blogging is a great place for students to think before they speak and it also provides them the chance to practice the writing process (edit,revise,etc.)
ReplyDeleteI will ensure that the students are "heard" by monitoring their comments similiar to the way our professor does through this course. I will check for their inputs as a form of participation. Any inappropriate behavior will be handled just as if it were a class discussion, I would anaecdote it. Do you have any other suggestions?
They say great minds think alike! I plan on doing pretty much the same thing with my 7th grade Social Studies class. Eventually I would like to get to the point and maybe you could try this too, is let them present a topic in the blog. I figure I would start with topics, countries in the news, etc., but would eventually encourage them to do the same.
ReplyDelete