Blogs used for Distribution, Discussion, and Demonstration

Blogs have become a platform to share ideas, videos, photographs, and information and at the same time allows other people to leave comments. Many classrooms are implementing blogs in their classrooms.  They can be used in three ways: distribution, discussion, and demonstration.

Distribution

Blogs can be used for the distribution of information to students and their parents.  In my case, I would use www.weebly.com which lets you create a blog. I would use it with my current class, which is kindergarten and would cover all the subject areas. This blog would be more for the parents since my students don’t know how to read or write yet. In this blog, the parents would be able to see the class schedule; this way they would be aware of when the students have breakfast, go to lunch, have P.E., and are dismissed. This blog would also include the rules and discipline plan.  The homework for the whole week and a calendar with important information happening each month, like: picture day, early dismissals, the times for awards ceremonies, and parent teacher conferences would also be included. This would be like an electronic newsletter for the parents.

Discussion

Blogs can also be used to generate discussions between the students. I would use blogs for Language Arts for 4^th grade students. In this case, I would create a blog and have each student  post on this class blog their responses to either poetry covered in class or to a story that was read to them. Students would be read a story and then would have to post their response and cover the following TEKS. They could summarize and/or explain the lesson or the message of stories that are fiction. They could also compare and contrast the adventures of the characters. Then the students would respond to their students' posts.

Demonstration

Blogs can be used to show the students’ progress over time, like a portfolio. I would use the blog in the 4^th grade for Science. In this case, I would have the students work in groups and make a video of the labs, their results, and their reflections about what they learned. I would then ask them to post their videos and have other students make comments. Another idea for 4^th grade students in Language Arts would be for students to post their stories or brief compositions. I would give them a topic and they would write their stories, film themselves reading the story and then other students could post comments providing positive feedback. Several of these stories throughout the year would demonstrate each student’s progress through a digital portfolio.