Kidblog

Third graders were thrilled to start using a new website this week: kidblog.org.  We took our first stab at logging in and posting a short journal post, as well as at commenting on others' posts.

As this project evolves, we plan to "open" our blog to guests, which will allow parents and grandparents to add comments to student posts.  For now, as we are just learning, only third grade students and teachers will be able to post.   All posts have to be approved by a blog administrator (teacher) for the post to show up on the blog.

Students have realized that they are able to log on to the blog from home (as it is web based, and they know their password) - and they can show you what our blog is like.  We do ask that for now, students do not do any posting from home.  Should a student log on from home and post/comment, Mrs. Bender and Mrs. Hartsock will be notified via e-mail, and those not following our guidelines will be removed from the blog.

Keep in mind that our first posts are not very "polished" - we were focusing on learning how to post and comment, and didn't take much time composing our posts.  Now that we know how the blog works (login procedure, how to post and comment), students will be required to write future posts in complete sentences and to attend to punctuation and capitalization.  It will be fun to see how the quality and content of the posts improves with time and experience.

Below is a copy of the letter explaining our blogging project that is in today's Friday folder.

We are excited to try something new with students this year – blogging!

As you know from reading our classroom blog (and possibly many other blogs!), a weblog (or blog for short) is a place where one can publish his/her writing online.  Our student blog will be online (kidblog.org), but is password protected, meaning that it will not be accessible to everyone. Initially we are only going to allow students and teachers in our classrooms to access the blog.  If you are interested in checking it out, please contact your child’s homeroom teacher.  (Once we get the hang of blogging, we do plan to provide parents with a guest login and password so that you can read and comment on your student’s writing too).

Blogging will allow our students the opportunity to develop their writing skills as well as to write for an audience. Students will write “posts” pertaining to books they are reading, science reflections, and will also be allowed to use their blogs as a journal.  Students will also be encouraged to read posts written by their peers and to leave comments/provide feedback on their writing.  All posts and comments will be approved by a teacher prior to being posted for all to read.

We are hopeful that blogging will encourage our students to write, provide them an opportunity to publish their writing, become a way to both give and to receive constructive feedback, as well as become a forum for learning internet and blogging etiquette.