Blogging Ideas

This is like a write-as-I-go type entry, so you will definitely be seeing me solve my own dilemmas in this post.  I hope it helps anyone who is interested in starting a blog, but wasn't sure what to do or how to start like myself. STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS! That's the fancy term for what I'm talking about.  Sorry for the all caps.  I couldn't remember the name for it, it bugged me, and I figured it out. Hooray!!

Introduce writing posts & commenting etiquette by creating a "paper blog."  Lesson found here.  It's filled with truly wonderful ideas... I would be thrilled to give this project a shot!  And I think the final results would make for great bulletin boards!  Like I believe the page mentions, it's great for students who have been together since they were old enough to be in a school setting to learn something new about their peers.  My group is in the same situation!

Adding comments to a paper blog.

I found a few ready-made permission slips, each with brilliant ideas.  One being choose your child's privacy level.  If memory serves, kidblog would allow me to customize each kid's settings.

This site has ideas for blogging activities, which is a great springboard for me.  I'm kind of liking the idea of letting students take the lead on their posts, with prompts from me every once in a while, but... I don't know if that vagueness would fly if I must get this idea approved of.  Here is another site with a few other ideas.

I also really like the way this article lays out the first few days and talks about the responsibilities of the students.  The questions they must ask themselves translates really nicely to facebook, also...which is important to me. I've seen a few of their accounts, and it concerns me.  I, in my trolling, also stumbled upon a site where there is a brief post on the analogy of the internet being like the mall - very smart.

Here is an excellent resource, entitled "What You Wanted to KNOW About Student Blogging."   It is amazing and covers topics like should you assess posts, and if so how?  Or how to increase your target audience.  I think ideally, I'd like my students to have a blog that others outside of the class can see and post on, but I don't know the realism of that, and again...that would require a looser hand on what they post, I think.  No one would want to read reading-related posts.

Free internet safety pledge.  Very smart idea.

Ah, I may have just found it! The perfect idea for posts!  In 14 Steps to Meaningful Student Blogging, Mrs. Ripp (who is quickly becoming my blogging goddess) links to her blog where she posts blogging challenges.  GENIUS.  Many of her posts allow students a way to respond to their educational environment honestly, so that she can get to know what they think and how they feel about numerous topics.  Some examples are testing, rules, her as a teacher, etc.  In general, I think this site is amazing.  It is where I am getting most of my ideas from.  Mrs. Ripp, you are an inspiration!!

Anyway, that's it for now.  I'm glad I did the research... I am now armed with more solid ideas to present when teachers report back to work tomorrow!

Ahhh, I can't believe the time has finally come!!!