Category: student blogging

blogging, student blogging, Student-centered

Proud to Present – Creating Global Citizens with Meaningful Blogging

Pernille Ripp
On November 12th at 3 PM EST, I am proud to be presenting for SimpleK12.  A description follows of this 30 minute learning opportunity that you don’t want to miss.


How would you like to invite the world into your classroom and expose your students’ writing to an authentic audience? Do you want your students to be global citizens who are connected with other children around the world? If so, then student blogging is for you! In this webinar we will show you how to get started with student blogging, as well as how to connect with others throughout the world. We will explore some examples of how global blogging can be used in the classroom and share some tips to make it easier.


To register for this webinar, just click on this link
connections, global, student blogging, Student-centered, technology

Why Students Should Blog – My Top 10

Pernille Ripp
Image: Kristina B

I have written about it before, I will write about it again I am sure, so here is why students should blog:

  1. They have an actual audience to write for.  The writing is no longer just for me but the whole world. When we write science diaries, we have scientists write back to us and push their questioning skills.  When students write about a book they are reading, other students ask them questions and give them more recommendations.  When students go on vacations they write to us to tell us all about it.  You get the idea.
  2. You can track their writing progress.  I have always had them keep track of their writing in their binders but invariable papers got lost.  Here I can see their growth, print it out and hand it to them.  I can have them focus on specific skills, just like regular writing, but they can go in and edit on their own time.  They can see their growth and the electronic version seems to appeal to them more.
  3. It opens a dialogue.  Students have a direct line to their teacher and to anyone else they are connected with.  Blogging helps us write back to each other, but great blogging is like a conversation with questions and critique.  My students are learning how to engage in written dialogue with topics they care about. 
  4. It establishes their internet identity in safe manner.  Students are getting on the internet earlier and earlier so as teachers it is vital we embrace this opportunity to teach them safety.  My students know the safety rules by heart and help each other follow them.  By being on the internet and establishing a presence they are actively practicing staying safe rather than just talking about it.
  5. They teach each other.  Numerous times my students have corrected misconceptions or created new awareness of concepts being taught within our room.  They become teachers rather than just students in our classroom and blogging allows them to continue that outside our classroom walls.
  6. They are global citizens and global collaborators.  We speak of creating global citizens but then forget to actually connect kids with kids.  My students know where places in the world are because they speak to kids from those places.  We have connections around the world that we can use when we study other places and this year my students will even be working on a project together with another classroom.
  7. Transparency.  Too often teachers shut their doors to the world rather than sharing the amazing things we concoct along with or students.  Blogging opens up that door and shows the whole world what is happening.  My students have more than once inspired other teachers to try a project.
  8. They become aware of themselves as writers.  Students start to create their own essence as a writer first playing around with fonts but then creating tag lines for their blogs and deciding how they want to present themselves to the world as writers.  This is powerful at the elementary age.
  9. I can easily check in on their learning.  When my students blog about a concept I can quickly see whether they are understanding the essential concepts or need another learning opportunity.  
  10. You give them a voice.  Students need a way to express themselves to take ownership of their learning, so through our blog students tell the world their thoughts on education, their learning and their needs.  I am a better teacher because of their blogging.

I could keep going but I hope that this inspires you to try it.  Reach out, connect, I will gladly help anyone that wants to try blogging with their students.  My students tell me now that blogging is one of the best things that has ever happened to them.  To see their work and their thoughts visit them here

For more reasons why students should blog, check out this post:
blogging, kidblog, letter, student blogging, students

Student Blogging Resources to Get You Started

Pernille Ripp
I love that I get asked a lot about student blogging because it is something I am passionate about.  I often find myself sharing various posts, letters, and lessons that I have created, which means I have to find them first.  So to make my life easier, and perhaps even yours, here are my best resources on the why, the how, and the do on student blogging.

I am sure I forgot something, so if I did, please let me know.  I hope this is useful to you.

reflection, student blogging

Writing versus Blogging

Pernille Ripp
            Writing has always felt like a solitary process.  Of course, the outcome is shared and sometimes even the process is debated and fine tuned, but really once the piece has been written, it is done.  When you blog about something, rather than just write about it, the written piece is merely a “midpoint” a place to rest on the path, but not the destination.  This is important to understand as I think of how to sell the idea of the usefulness of a blog to my parents.  I don’t need to sell the idea to my students for even last year, when I had just a classroom blog, they begged to be allowed to share on it.  I foolishly didn’t let them.  Now, however, we are going out into official blog territory and so I need the  parents to come along and support this journey.  It is therefore vital that they understand that the blog is not just a way to put writing up on the Internet but rather is a whole different way of writing.
            The main point for me in considering a student created blog is because they need to write for an actual audience.  Not just their classmates who hardly ever given them honest or even constructive feedback.  I am sick of the days of, “That’s really great.”  It is not that I want to feed my students to the wolves through their writing but rather that their writing needs to become an ever-shifting process, something they revisit and reflect upon, thus deepening their connection to it.   By adding the potential for the voice of others; other students, parents, other classrooms, my voice as the teacher becomes just one of many and that is a wonderful thing as well.  They are not writing for me anymore but for themselves to produce something that they can be proud of to share with the world.  I do not determine how long it must be, as long as the effort is there.  However, how do you define, or even worse, asses effort?  Through a blog you can see the effort put in when students choose to partake in the dialogue that has risen from their writing.  No longer static, but an ever-changing idea, molded perhaps by many and owned by even more.  That is the difference between writing and blogging for me.