Stop The Excuses, Your Students Could Be Blogging!

I had to share what happened in my class the other day.  I have been really encouraging my students to use the Kidblog App on the iPads for making their learning visible and for increasing the type of content that is on their blogs.  (My students are using their blogs as digital portfolios this year.)  This past week, I had kids wanting to take pictures of the books they wanted at the school book fair and wrote about why they wanted that book.  I had other students ask if they could take pictures of their completed Math Station because they were proud of their work.

I have one student that takes a picture of what she is eating at dinner and puts it on her blog. Others wanted to use the ShowMe App to explain what they were doing in literacy or math.  The Kidblog App has made it so easy to add pictures and video to their blogs that I have student's embedding their work without any help from me. (YEAH!)
I had a student add a video from the ShowMe App the other day.  That night I was going through my student's blogs and watched the video he had put on his blog about patterning.  I had to watch it twice because it was so cute!  He was teaching his audience about patterning and asking his audience what came next in his pattern.  The best part however, was the feedback he gave after he asked the question.  Take a look:



I talked to my student the next day about the video and told him how great I thought it was.  We talked about his audience and it ignited an excitement in writing that I had not seen before.  He came to me later that day and told me how excited he was for writing that day to continue what he was working on because he thought it would be a good blog post.  I asked him if he wanted to use the iPad during writing and he acted like it was Christmas!  He was so excited to write on his blog and "teach all the other students that look at his blog about his writing."  I put his ShowMe on Twitter that evening and a team member from ShowMe commented on his blog.  I can't wait to show him tomorrow at school.  If that isn't a reason to write and to encourage a reluctant writer to write, I don't know what is.  I STRONGLY encourage you to start blogging with your students!  There is no excuse, my students are in grade 1 and 2 so they are young.  All you need is one laptop, or iPad, or smartphone to start.   The excuse that you don't have any tech is not going to work anymore.  I brought an old personal laptop from home last year and it was "The Blogging Computer."  Students could go and log onto their Kidblog account at any point of the day if they had something they wanted to share or write about on their blog.  Start out small, no one says that you must have all of your students blogging at the same time.  Start out with a couple of students that have showed interest in it and who you know are ready for it.  I taught my students during my guided reading time.  It doesn't need to be hard and overwhelming.  First start with baby steps and soon your class will be running!