While this post is from my other blog, I have found it to be a very useful one, thus the cross posting. Many of us have started our students blogging but to ensure full parent and student understanding, I created these documents. We still use these documents, halfway through the year, as we continue to emphasize safe internet usage and responsible behavior. My students can practically recite the safety plan.
One of our main components will be our Kidblog but since this is the first year anyone has done anything like this in my school, there was some safety business to handle first. So here are my links to an internet safety plan my students will sign as well as the Kidblog introduction letter I am sending home to parents. Please feel free to use.
Category: blogging
A Ghost Child says Hello
 |
| Image from here |
I call them ghost children, those students who pop up in our classroom for weeks or months only to vanish again as quickly as they appeared. One student, let’s call him Tom, showed up a couple of weeks into the school year ready to learn. Hailing from Chicago, he was so excited about having art, gym, and regular teachers rather than subs. At his old school they didn’t have such luxuries I quickly discovered. I spoke to his mom several times on the phone, asking if there was anything we could do to help her find a home, a job, etc. Her main concern was always Tom and his education, particularly getting him out of trouble and into learning.
Every day, Tom greeted me with the biggest smile. He was ready to learn, no matter the obstacles and just couldn’t believe all of the “amazing” things we were doing. Blogging, in particular, was something he loved to do, writing stories that made little sense and never quite fulfilling the task at hand. But he wanted to learn, to connect, to be a part of something.
And then, one day he was gone. We called home and got no answer. The weekend came and another couple of days passed by and his seat continued to be empty. I reached out, once getting a family member on the phone stating he would be back the next day. Days passed and I got more people involved, trying to find my student, worrying where he had gone’ and why his stuff hadn’t gone with him.
More than 2 weeks has passed and this morning I opened up our kidblog. There was a new post waiting for my approval:
hay ever one this is Tom what up i am likening my new school sorry miss ripp i had to transfer but i will talk to you and the class ever day tell Nathan Erick Hannah Lewis well ever body i miss them by
There he was, letting me know everything was alright, reaching out. Maybe this blogging thing makes a difference after all.
If I Were a Teacher – Reflections from Students
Ah from the mouths of students. Every week I challenge my students to blog asking them various questions. This week I thought why not ask them how they would run their classroom? What do they love when we do and what would they change. Well the answers are in and they are very revealing (and not so surprising after all).
- No Homework. The consummate complaint is that teachers give too much of it, that it is too hard, or even worse that it is boring and/or pointless. We know this probably from our own school experience, so why is it most of us ( and I used to be one) feel the absolute requirement to prescribe homework? Students already give you at least 6 some hours of their day, how about we give them a break and let them enjoy life a bit?
- Rewards, candies, and parties. Yes, students want to be rewarded and they do not know why. No students wrote how they would “earn” said rewards but many pointed out that parties were the best thing about school. Makes me sad to think that with all of the amazing learning going on, the parties we throw are the ones that kids remember. So how do we change that?
- More spelling tests. Ok, that one was a surprise. I have a couple of girls that love spelling and so for them a perfect classroom means more spelling tests. Preferably on Thursdays when their minds are still fresh. I am still thinking about that one.
- More creativity. Students don’t want to show us their progress through another worksheet (well, some do but many don’t). Students want to create. So my students are asking for more creative projects. I cannot wait for them to see the Native American Battle simulation I am working on right now.
- Rules. Not the rules you set up, but rules they come up with. This year I do not have rules posted on the walls but we discuss them a lot. Especially trust and just how important it is in our classroom. It shows again that students crave structure with some freewill embedded and gives me a good reminder that we need to have another class meeting to discuss norms.
And then the compliment. Almost all of my students had to share just how amazing I am as their teacher and while I certainly appreciate the compliment I also wonder about it. The challenge did not say anything about me or rating my performance but rather what they would do themselves if they were a teacher. When are students taught that they must tell you that you are their favorite teacher or that you rock? I always tell my students that they do not have give me compliments unless they mean them but whenever I mention teachers, there it is, “well, you are my favorite one.” Oh if it really were so, I will settle with being one they like and not let the rest go to my head.
If you would like to see the blogging challenge (blogging challenge 3) and their thoughts on tests (blogging challenge 2) as well go to our class blog. While you are there, leave us a comment. They love to hear from others and we mark you on our map as well.
But Mrs. Ripp, Blogging is Boring
My students are now seasoned bloggers, or so they would like to think anyway. So as I was congratulating myself on a job well done, noting how much they were loving it, imagine my surprise when one student exclaimed just the opposite, “Do we have to blog, Mrs. Ripp, it is soooo boring.” For anyone that has taught 4th graders you know exactly what this sounds like coming from a 9 year old boy that would rather fight jedis than listen to me teach.
Ahh, but aren’t you the fun teacher, some people may think. Well, I like to think I am, sometimes, or as my husband would say, I lull myself with delusions of funniness, but anyone who has ever tried to play the funny teacher when the curriculum gets tough, knows how difficult it can be. So there I stand with my blogging pride in my hands, racking my brain over what I did wrong. I get it; this kid is not a big fan of school to say it mildly, in fact, he told me I was the perfect teacher when I stated there would be little homework in my classroom if students worked hard in school. Much to his surprise, he doesn’t understand that if he doesn’t work during class, then there is work to be completed at home. Strike one against me; I went back on my promise. I also promised him that blogging would be fun; strike two, blogging is only fun when you can write about whatever you want and get lots of comments from people all over the world. However, people don’t leave comments if you don’t blog.
So what do you do when students hate that spectacular idea that you love so much? Well, my initial reaction was to put on my big girl pants, along with my teacher voice, and tell him it’s his own fault for not writing blogs that people want to comment on. Glad I stopped that train-wreck. I then thought about it some more and realized that I don’t know what to do. Sure I have some minor ideas such as asking him how I can make it fun, giving him free time to write, promoting his blog on #comments4kids and so forth. But how do you reach a kid that already has decided by 4th grade that school is not the place he wants to put in his energy, his dreams, his wishes or his time? I leave that question up to you, my fantastic PLN, what would you say to this child if you were me? How would you help him realize what excitement he can gain from learning? And most of all, how would you reach him before it really is too late?
So Blogging is just for Fun?
In the past 3 weeks my students have finally gotten to start blogging on their own. We did not take this endeavor lightly and therefore first had to discuss safety of blogging and being on the Internet, see this post on the lesson used. We also had to discuss how to properly comment on other posts through the use of paper blogs, a lesson I wish I had come up with but which I absolutely borrowed from some fantastic educators and its creator Leonard Low, and how to solicit comments on one’s own; after all, these blogs were meant to be starts of conversations and not solitary pieces of writing. Finally, we were ready.
Our first blog post was tied in with the Global Read Aloud Project and if you visit our kidblog you will notice that many of them do tie in with this. However, I hope you will also notice something else; how the students have started to type using paragraphs with topic sentences as well as how their blogs appear visually. See, I am all for creative writing but I also have a writing curriculum to teach so I therefore combined the students’ passion towards blogging, and believe me they are blogging in their free time, with my requirements for writing. So one week was dedicated to the fine tunings of a paragraph, discussing not just the how (they mostly know that already) but also the why. The result of that week’s focus was these introduction posts. This week we are discussing types of sentences and you will notice, hopefully, later this week how students have to use different types of sentences in their blog posts.
So to those educators that still think student blogging is just for fun, I say, not in my classroom! Of course, blogging is a blast, after all, how often do kids beg to write more over the weekend or groan when time is up? Yet blogging is so much more than that; it is writing for an actual audience, not just the teacher, it is learning how to engage in a written conversation, how to constructively criticize writing, as well as appreciate other people’s skills and abilities. Blogging has brought my fantastic students even closer as they reach out and cheer for each other. Blogging has taught us that it matters that our writing makes sense because otherwise we may not get many comments or questions. It is teaching us that we are not solitary writers and hopefully never will be. Blogging for us is a life lesson of communication, writing, connections, and internet safety mixed in with conventions, crafts of a writer, and as well as the writing process. To us it is how writing is taught with the added bonus of portfolio creation. So to those that think student blogging is just a fad, a way to amuse and use some technology, think again; blogging can a revolution in writing if you let it. Don’t stand in its way.
So You Want to Use Kidblog?
I am practically counting down the days until school starts just bursting at the seams with all of the great technology we are going to use next year. One of our main components will be our kidblog but since this is the first year anyone has done anything like this in my school, there was some safety business to handle first. So here are my links to an internet safety plan my students will sign as well as the kidblog introduction letter I am sending home to parents.
Pernille Ripp 