You Should Know about Blogging with Students
- If your students are at least middle school aged, most of them know more about blogging than you do...and if they don't, they will figure it out fast!
- Administrators and parents don't know much about blogging and are all but afraid of it.
- Don't underestimate the power of blogging with students. Students who you have a hard time reaching in the regular classroom will come alive online.
- Choose your platform wisely. Choose it wisely for your private life. Choose it wisely for your professional life. Choose it wisely for your students. And avoid mixing the three.
- You need to have a discussion or blog posting to set up rule about blogging. This could be similar to allowing students to help create a "class constitution." A place for students to add rules as they find a need is a good idea as well.
- You yourself need a plan for handling inappropriate posting. The last thing you want is for the beautiful blogging atmosphere you have created to become a place for harassment or bullying.
- Let them post! Let students create their own posts as well as responding to your posts.
- Promote readership by having student constructively respond to other students posts.
- Let them play! Show students new tricks like wordle, flickr, googledocs, ect. to add to their postings.
- Read other blogs to get ideas for your blog. Get inspiration from every resource you have. Your ideas for postings topics don't have to come from electronic resources. Find a good old book of journal topics and use some of those. Just keep them posting!
