Getting started- beginning to use blogs with students

Now that I feel that I'm coming to better understand the features on Blogger, I think it's time to explore the options available to help me get started using blogs with my students.  It was fairly easy for me to get started myself, and I am sure that my students will catch on just as quickly, however it's very important for me to have a clear plan, expectations, and way for assessing work.  Without proper preparation, a great idea can quickly collapse and I wouldn't want my students to miss out of the great value in this activity.  To help me plan, I searched for available web resources to support my instruction. 

Blogging in Your Classroom: A Guide to Getting Started

This site gives a great description of the basics of blogs, their use in education, and how to get started.  It appears to be geared more towards an audience of teachers in lower levels, but I think would be great for anyone wanting to begin a new task with blogging.  It gives great ideas about setting up a class blog and sites that can be used to help facilitate that, such as KidBlog.  A class site would be a great way to create an exchange of ideas, allowing my students to stay up to date on class news, themes, and activities, while at the same time using the target language.  We have a program at my school where we can post assignments for students to see, but it is not as interactive as a blog and therefore, in my opinion, not as timely and effective.  Also, some of my classes contain 30+ students, so blogging will give them all a chance to participate, even when they all don't have time to participate individually as much as I would like in class.

I especially like the tips about clear regulations for commenting and keeping parents in the loop with blog activities.  Both very important points to being successful.  Getting parents on board can really benefit the project as a whole. 

Blogging Resources for Classroom Teachers

This is another great resource for getting started blogging in the classroom.  This contains a great list of resources for the educator who is just starting to blog.  My personal favorite link is 14 Steps to Meaningful Student Blogging  It provides a step by step guide to help teachers feel comfortable getting started.  I enjoy the idea of teaching students how to blog by "paper blogging" first, and then moving to using the technology.  These are great ideas to get started!  I'm looking forward to beginning some of the steps and sharing them with my fellow department members.  I'm excited about the idea of blogging become a part of our successful foreign language program!

Blogging- a beginner's point of view

Blogging, for me, has always seemed to be an easy way to communicate with those around me to share my ideas and interact with others. Setting up my new blog has so far been a very easy experience. Blogger.com appears to be a very straight forward program, and though starting out I have tried to keep things very basic, I am sure that I will continue to modify and improve as time goes on. I'm looking forward to the practice working with this application so that I feel more comfortable introducing it to my students later on. I am currently set to begin maternity in the middle of May and would love to have a blog set up by then to stay in contact with my students and give them an opportunity to keep me up to date with how they are performing and working in my absence. I think this will give me a great chance to have a presence in the classroom without actually being present on a daily basis in the building!

In developing my first entry, I searched for available internet resources to provide me with ways that others are incorporating this technology into their world language classrooms. I found two sites that gave me some great inspiration.

http://journal.jaltcall.org/articles/1_1_Pinkman.pdf

A great journal article detailing the strengths of using blogs and giving student learners more responsibility and independence in the classroom. One of my main focuses this year has been working towards releasing some of my control during instruction and requiring students to take on a more active role in the class. Blogging is a very effective way of handing this responsibility over to them, while encouraging them to take ownership of their use of the language. Blogging requires students to communicate with other another and forces them to express themselves in the target language. Practice brings proficiency and keep students excited about learning!

http://mmeduckworth.blogspot.com/2012/12/how-to-use-social-media-in-foreign.html

Great tips from a Canadian French teacher currently integrating social media in a variety of formats into her language classroom. An excellent introduction to providing students with the chance to develop new technology and language skills!

Both provide ways that language teachers can begin to plan for applying the development of a blog into their instruction.  They've lead me to a lot of reflection about ways that I, too, can bring together a plan for my students.  What are the best ways to provide students with valuable opportunities in the classroom?  Leave your comments below and I hope to explore more as this project moves forward.