Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Social Networking
I am baffled when it comes to figuring out how to using social networking in my first grade classroom. I'm discovering I really like blogging and I enjoy having it as part of this class. I'm still reflecting on the articles each week, it doesn't take me as long to write my response, and I can see what my other class members are thinking. I could definitely see myself using this as an alternative to journaling in a upper elementary, middle school, high school, or college setting. However I'm really struggling with finding a practical, natural use for social networking in my lower elementary class. The only thing I can think of so far would be to possibly find blogs of people who have connections to a story or unit we talk about during the year. For example, one story we read is about how kids all over the world are the same. I could try to find blogs with pictures from the countries in the book as another resource to make connections with other cultures. Besides my blog for this class, I have yet to do much with blogging so I don't know if that's a real possability or not. I'd be grateful for any suggestions or advice!
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4 comments:
It is difficult thinking about this for younger students. I appreciate you keeping your 'mind' open to ideas, but again, we don't want to force it either. One way to think about it is... at that age students need modeling and scaffolding of activities. So, in terms of a blog maybe it is a class blog that documents information coming from your classroom. Daily? Weekly? Just think how much parents like access to what happened in school today! Students can contribute to the entries, but a nice way of opening up the classroom to others - hopefully safely! You would still need to communicate you intentions with administration etc. so they know it is happening.
I agree with Denise. I think it's great that you are looking for ways to incorporate this into your lower elementary classroom. I like the idea of the students writing blogs about their daily activities. You might be able to set some sort of a template that they can use when blogging, so they don't have to type so much. Not sure if that makes sense or not. Just some thoughts
Those are both great ideas. I like the idea of making a class blog and have a reporter for the week. I wanted to do that when I taught 5th grade with a class newletter, but I never got that started. And using Chad's idea of having a template for the students would make their job even easier! Definitely something for me to play around with!
I am with you on the blogging thing with little kids. I have seen their keyboarding skills and it takes them 5 minutes to write one sentence. I was thinking that maybe we as primary teahcers could do a whole class project. Hook our computer up to our in focus machine and find another 1st or 2nd grade class that is into blogging too and we could write a circle story where each class adds a different part to it and see how the story develops. Or we could all read the same book and discuss it together via the blogg. I think it could be a fun thing. It is definitley still in the development phase.
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