Blogger Madness

My kids are bloggers!

Very late in the school year (May), a friend told me about a website for teachers to set up student blogs. I had been searching for quite a while to find a safe and secure way for students to write their own blogs. The website? Kidblog.org

This amazing service for teachers allows you to set up private blogs for your class. All posts and comments that the kids write are reviewed by the teacher, so you have ultimate control of the content. It's easy and kid-friendly. It's teacher-friendly, too.

Even though it was the end of the school year, our class blog was up and running in a day. I had given them a homework assignment--write a paragraph about what you did on Memorial Day weekend. They wouldn't be allowed to submit this first blog post unless they came in with the homework. You wouldn't believe how eager the kids were to show me their homework the next day! Everybody did it, even those chronic homework-avoiders. A couple of kids told me they had left their homework at home, and could they re-write their paragraph at recess. I have never seen such enthusiasm to get homework done, and all because they wanted to start blogging.

I gave them a couple of rules for the blog:
1. Titles must be relevant and capitalized correctly.
2. Writing must be standard fourth grade writing.
3. Their submission would not be posted until they edited their blog.

Many kids typed in their paragraphs quickly and perfectly. I posted them as quickly as I could review them. Other kids, however, needed a lot of work on their paragraphs--punctuation, spelling, grammar--you get the drift. I highlighted their errors in red and returned their blog with comments. All they had to do was fix the errors, and then I would post.

Finally--kids found writing and editing relevant.

As they read each others' blogs, they came to understand the importance of writing clearly--and writing about interesting things.

Naturally they also wanted to start commenting on each other's posts. So up came another set of rules:
1. Comments must be relevant.
2. Comments must be polite.
3. Ask questions.

I gave some general guidelines. One or two-word comments like "Cool" or "I agree" would not be posted. If they agreed or disagreed with something, they had to give a reason. I would also not post any unkind remarks. We discussed at length the difference between being "unkind" and just "disagreeing" with someone.

So with Kidblog.org, we can create a new generation of writers. If they start early enough, writing will eventually become a daily activity like eating, reading, and playing. By giving them guidelines, they will learn early on how to be responsible and respectful users of the blogging medium.

Get ready, cloud--the blogger kids are coming!