Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Phenonenal Use of Blogging by 6th Graders

Last spring, I posted a blog about this site, Tell the Raven. Check out the blog, maintained by an Alaskan teacher and his students. The teacher, Mr. Noonan, writes: "Tell the Raven is a community writing project for my Grade 6 (grade 4 material is in the archives) students in Fairbanks, Alaska. The Raven totem pole stands in the middle of our playground. Our stories go out to the world." Note that in addition to the class blog, each student maintains blog, accessible by clicking on the student's pen name at the end of an entry. Visit a few of the the students' blogs to see what they have been writing, and check the teacher's list of online resources and the blog's archive. The archive reveals how the blog has been used by former students. This blog project illustrates ways to integrate Web 2.0 tools into the classroom. Post your comments after browsing the blog, looking at students' blogs, checking the archive, and using the resource links. What purpose do you envision blogging having in the K-12 setting? Would you consider maintaining one? Why, or why not?

Image from: http://www.tellraven.us/denali/node/36

1 comment:

Liz R. said...

In my opinion blogging provides a way to build student rapport in the classroom and amongst students in the world. Thanks to the use of web 2.0 tools sixth graders from all over the world can comment on one another's thoughts, ideas and perspectives creating a global classroom. Blogging also provides students with a forum to share their thoughts and ideas and to consider the ideas of others to possibly change their original view on a topic. As a Spanish I and II teacher, I have used blogging in the classroom, but due to limited language ability in Spanish the posts have been limited and I did this before the introduction of Web 2.0 tools. I can now see this a method to communicate with a sister school in Spain and other places, as well as with my students. I think that this is learning at its best and I encourage all teachers to try blogging!

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