Using technology is my favorite way to motivate my third grade classroom. The children love using computers. One example of how I would begin my blog would be to post a question and require my students to respond to my question, or another classmate’s response.
In my third grade class we read the book Balto, the Dog Who Saved Nome, by Margaret Davidson. After reading the book I ask the students the question: Who do you think was the hero in the story? Explain. I would begin my blog with this question. I would also provide links to some websites that provide information about Huskies, The True Story of Balto, and Attributes of Heroes. Providing these links on my blog will allow student to gain some background knowledge to assist them in responding to the blog’s question.
My hope is that students will come up with new ideas, show creativity and original thinking. Many students may start with trying to repeat what the first student response was. I think with proper modeling, students will expand their thinking as they become more comfortable with the world of blog writing. My ultimate goal is to transform my classroom into a community of learners.
Blogging requires teachers to show students how to write for a public audience. Prior to the posting of the answers to the blog question, many lessons need to be covered. Blogging etiquette lessons would be taught. The students would also be taught how to write an answer to a question for an audience to read. The last thing I would do is expose my students to several great examples of blog responses.
A rational for my blog lesson:
Blogs are changing the way students learn. They provide the opportunity for students to spend quality time in school and at home sharing knowledge, opinions and learning from others. My blog would promote critical and analytical thinking. When I wrote this lesson I had not previously had a classroom blog. In my reading lessons, I like to ask thought provoking questions to lead my students to higher levels of thinking. The teaching of reading is really more the teaching of thinking. Students need to be shown how to think as they read. I am constantly telling my students that a good reader is always thinking. A great way to show my students this would be to create a critical reading blog. A blog is an excellent opportunity to allow my students to read and write more while collaborating and discussing higher level thinking questions. I look forward to implementing this lesson as I grow more comfortable in using blogs.
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You bring up some very good points. Students at all levels must be taught blogging etiquette, and using models of good blogging etiquette is a great way to do so. I also liked your ideas of adding links so that they have access to other information in order to form their response. One way, if available, to have students post their own thoughts and work, is to possibly work on the posts simultaneously.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your idea of working on posts simultaneously. This would be a goal I could work on as the year progresses. Third graders would most likely not be able to handle simultaneously post until the end of third grade. However, there are always bright students who are advanced in the area of technology. I will keep this in mind to use to challenge my students who understand and show advanced skills while blogging
ReplyDeleteI teach 3rd grade also and don't know how successful blogging will be at this grade level, but I guess you can't judge it until you try. You have the same idea I was thinking, to just give them a question they can answer and explain their thinking. I also was thinking giving them a story starter and they can write a short story, like who their hero is. Then their classmates can comment on their short story and they can edit it through their classmates ideas. What is your input on this?
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of a short story. I might have the kids write it first. I would make sure they have different heroes. (This is so all of the kids do not choose sports people) This is new to me too. I want to use a blog because I am interested to see how third graders respond to their classmates. We will have to try this and share our findings.
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