Communicating … What Are Your Students Going to Blog About?

Here are a few ideas …

Language Arts

• Using your blog to continue classroom discussion is fantastic. When studying character development in writing, could you ask the class to discuss what they are doing to develop the character they create for their story? Students could ask for feedback or suggest ideas that may help improve their writing.
• In some elementary grades, blogging can be cumbersome because students are focused on writing mechanics. A teacher could remove some roadblocks by changing the blog environment for the week. “This week, don’t worry about spelling” may be used to just get student ideas down without fear of reprimand. The teacher could get more writing from the student and gets a more honest assessment of spelling at the same time. Pick some of the frequently misspelled words for the next week’s spelling list.
• Instead of a paper assignment for collecting sentences using the grammar skill taught that day, have the students write their sentences in their blog comment. See if they can migrate from random grammar practice sets to meaningful statements which also show the grammar lesson for that week.

Science

• Used as a pre-assessment, the blog comments can gather prior knowledge before you undertake a new unit. Gather student predictions about a lab you will do the next week. Students can predict the outcome before doing the lab. Encourage students to review other students' predictions and then to comment on why they agree/disagree with their predictions.
  
• Data collection is easy to teach with fictional data. Increase student ownership and have the students comment about a topic that will include data. “How many of you watched a ‘reality TV’ show last week? Who would watch a reality show take from inside our classroom? How many weeks would you follow the class and why?” There could be significant number generation from their data and you would have real data collection from a source that your students own and value.
• Find classes in other parts of the country. Convince them to comment about their weather every Thursday. All of the classes involved would not only have a record of their own weather, but would be able to compare weather histories across the country.

Math

• Math is often seen as a ‘one right answer’ class. But we know that there is usually more than one way to answer most problem situations. Pose the weekly math problem and have students or small groups create their solutions in their comment. Students will have a record of the possible answers that they can retrieve from home or elsewhere in school. Additional comments can discuss why the other groups’ answers were or were not correct. The teacher can give a historical perspective of how groups have been using a particular method of the past so many weeks.
• There are many online videos that demonstrate a mathematical method. Include a video in your post. Have the students comment on how they used that method in their solutions that week.
• A weekly challenge problem can be designed to have many answers. Students can post their solutions and get points for correct answers. Other students can respectfully discuss errors in other students’ solutions or confirm a solution and get points that way. Using descriptive words without the ability to add graphics to ‘show’ an answer helps build written language skills and reinforces the use of math vocabulary.

Social Studies

• What text book doesn’t have open-ended questions at the end of the chapter? These questions can be great discussion starters.
• What if questions were never my favorites as a teacher, but students sometimes feed off of them like candy. “What if Abraham Lincoln didn’t get elected?” “What if Thomas Jefferson were president today?” Students can bring in primary sources or reinforcing websites as links in their comment to show that they are really thinking their answers through.
• Biography studies can show commonalities between historically important people from across the time line. “Name a person in history who was a failure during his lifetime, but who later became ‘successful’ due to his previous achievements.”

It is important to keep in mind that some blog comments can be impromptu thoughts while others may require problem-solving or research before a comment is possible. Your class blog can be whatever you want it to be. The possibilities are endless, so let those imaginative juices flow!