Getting Started with Blogs - Grades 5-12

You've heard all about all the advantages of blogging with students:

• Helps students learn anytime and anywhere
• Builds community
• Gives students a voice
• Gives students an authentic audience
• Improves writing

You are convinced that you want to try it. How do you go about getting started and where do you get the time? In this Getting Started series I want to feature Read Write Think's awesome source of lessons on how to get started blogging with students.  Their Strategy Guide - Teaching with Blogs will help you get started and save you time because they have done some of the ground work.

The guide has a section on the whys blogging with students is important.  It also has a section called Strategy in Practice which helps you think about all the practical things you need to know before you start blogging.

The thing that made me decide to include them in this series is the grade level lessons they feature. These lessons have done a lot of the ground work for you to help you get started with the right foot.  If you read nothing else on this site go over this lesson Weekly Writer’s Blogs: Building a Reflective Community of Support. In this lesson students explore the conventions of blog writing.  It features a Writer's Log Assignment and a checklist for student's blog entry to help them evaluate their posts before they publish. It's targeted for High School, but with some innovative modifications you can use it for any grade.

Don't try to reinvent the wheel and take advantage of these great lessons.

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Blogging with Middle Schoolers - Step by Step

Love this article by Heather Wolpert-Gawron Blogging with Middle Schoolers.  She takes you step-by-step through the steps she uses to get her middle school students hooked on blogging.  One tip I liked was that she actually makes her students do offline blogging first.

I like her approach, taking students a step at time off-line, so that they can learn all the ins and outs of blogging with a safety net before they jump in prepares them for the online world.  Read the article and let me know what parts you could use in your blogging with students. I hope you find it useful.

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Blogging Helps Students Write More

This is a great article from a high school teacher who is blogging with her students to give them more opportunities to write more.  One of the benefits to highlight is that her students are a lot more careful about their writing.

Read the article to find out all the benefits this teacher found when she started blogging with her students.

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Blogging in the Classroom: Benefits

Here is a video from Linda Yolis and her second grade class about the benefits of blogging. It's great to see the students articulate why blogging is important to them. The students also talk about why it is important to be safe when they are online.  They talk about not giving away your YAPPY, watch the video and see how she has cleverly taught her students how to be safe in a way that they will understand and remember.  To use the video that explains all about YAPPY click here.

This is a link to her blog with her 3rd graders. Important to note is the directions she gives to anyone who wants to comment.  If you are going to open comments to the world then it is important that they know that you are monitoring them and how the comments should be formatted. In the comments you can see comments from students in her class, their parents, and other teachers.  She blogs about things that the students are doing in the class and posts relevant information about what they are studying.

She has been blogging since 2008 and averages about 100 posts a year.  There are about 6-9 posts per month which seems like a pretty doable enterprise.  Check out her blog for ideas on what you could do with your students.

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Adding a Resource Page to your Blog

If you want to have  page for resources that students can refer back to without having to use the Labels or search elements. You can do this by creating a static page.

To do this you go to your Dashboard and click on Pages icon. Then click on the NEW PAGE button to add a new page to your blog.  Add a title to your new page. Remember to keep the title short so that it fits easily in your navigation Menu.  Add the content you want your students to have access to and you're set. 

Before you publish click on the PREVIEW button to make sure it looks like you want it to. If you are not ready to Publish click on the SAVE button and save it as a draft until you are ready to publish. When you are ready to publish click on the PUBLISH button.

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