Kiddie Bloggers?

I am not one of the most technologically advanced people around. I decided to get a new "smart phone" that consistently out-smarts me, it has taken me 6 months to connect my new printer to my computer, and the only time I check my Facebook profile is to get rid of the notifications I have gotten in my e-mail. Therefore, when I was asked to create a blog of my own I was terrified at the thought.

For one, I thought that blogs were a thing of the past one the internet. I had figured people stopped using those around the same time as they ceased the use of AOL. Clearly my misunderstanding demonstrates just how "out of the loop" I am in the online world. Once I created my own blog for my class I began hearing all different types of people that kept a blog or followed someone's blog. I started to realize just how popular a tool blogs were.

After reading Diane Penrod's chapter, Blogging and New Literacies, my eyes were opened to an incredible way to get students excited about the writing process. The idea of having students keep their own blog is a fantastic way to help students to develop their voice as a writer and develop pride and ownership of their own voice. Unlike former writing tasks that students may see in the classroom, blogging is work that is created for more than the teacher as the reader. The student understands that their writing will be viewed by their peers, teacher, parents, and possibly the general public. It helps students develop an understanding of the audience they are writing for and various ways to appeal to them.

This is something that I would definitely want to incorporate into my classroom because it gives students a chance to write authentically. Just like reading, most adults write wherever and whenever they get a chance. They are not simply given a writing prompt and sat at a desk at an exact time and told when to write. Instead they share their feelings on their lunch breaks, in a coffee shop on the weekend, or from their couch when they get home. Giving students the opportunity to write whenever they feel the need is both empowering and realistic for a learner. Therefore, it is important that they are taught to write in an effective way whenever they do choose to write. Learning to write appropriately and intelligently for an online audience is a skill that will be essential for our youth in the future. Therefore, introducing these types of skills at the elementary level and arming them with those skills will help them in the real world.

As I was searching for some other great sites for students to use I came across a site called Kidblog.org, this site was created by teachers for classroom blogs. However, after reading Penrod's chapter I felt like having a blog site that is exclusive to a classroom or school is not really giving students the full effect of having their own blog. To me, this seems like a technologically advanced writing prompt given by teachers to students for teachers to read. Although this site may be a good use for younger students that are just beginning to write, I think that older students would benefit much more from having the opportunity to reply to any of the general public that responds to their posts. Giving them an authentic opportunity to use a blogging site would really benefit older students.

This chapter really opened my eyes to the many ways that blogging could be used to help many different types of learners to write. In the future I plan on using this tool in my own classroom.