Let me know what you think after you read through the post. Do you agree? Are you motivated to start blogging in your classroom?
Blogging is an excellent way of motivating students to develop a lifelong love of learning. Writing is a process, and when they learn this they will be able to apply the skills to other aspects of their schooling. It also teaches children critical thinking skills which will help them as they progress through school. Along with the development of critical thinking skills, students will learn how to conduct research. This is particularly important both in school and in the workplace they will one day take part in.
Blogging Helps Students Connect Different Subjects
This is particularly important when it comes to reluctant learners. Some children shy away from certain subjects, and it can be difficult to get them involved. Blogging for kids will make it easier for them to make connections between what might at first seem to be dissimilar subjects.
Blogging Encourages Students To Sort Out Their Feelings
In fact, writing is so important in this regard that it is considered a form of creative therapy. Children who blog regularly can reduce anxiety and increase self-esteem. With blogging, there isn’t the same pressure that some children feel with social media. Instead of it being a popularity content, blogging becomes a personal and positive way to express individuality.
Blogging Improves Writing Skills
With constructive feedback, it increases grammar skills and helps children with the development of sentence structure. Learning these skills in an interactive way tends to be more effective than sitting through dry lesson plans. Increased grammar and writing skills will also help improve a student’s reading level. This increased comprehension will make reading more exciting and is likely to create a lifelong love of the written word.
Blogging Helps Students Find Their Own Voice
Most teachers can attest to the fact that students who only complete writing assignments as homework tend to turn in assignments that all sound the same. Blogging on a regular basis teaches children the value and importance of their own creativity.
Blogging will excite students about writing, and exciting them about this valuable skill will help encourage them to participate in it on a regular basis. They will learn that polished expression does not just magically appear, but instead is a step by step process that gets easier the more they practice.
What Can Teachers Do?
One of the most important steps is to share your own enjoyment of writing and blogging. Kids love to emulate. If they see your enjoyment, even the most reluctant writers are more apt to make an honest attempt. Seeing you write and knowing it’s something important to you will have a greater impact than if you simply talk about it with them.
Providing feedback is another crucial step you can take to make blogging both fun and inspirational. Remember that feedback needs to be genuine, because most children will be able to spot it if it’s not.
The best way to provide genuine feedback is to make it specific. Telling a student that you like his or her work and that they are a good writer will not be as effective as informing a student that their sentence structure or research skills have improved.
Encouraging your class to write each day is another effective way to motivate a love of writing. Writing on a regular basis will help your students develop ideas and also to understand the evolution of idea development. Do not forget to leave enough time in the classroom to answer any questions that might arise.
Students can find blogging to be exciting, and they will use the valuable skills they learn throughout their lives.
I do agree that blogging can help motivate reluctant writers. This year, I have several students on my caseload who have a difficult time writing. My co-teacher and I have been discussing different ways that we can create "outside the box" writing assignments for these particular students. I'd love to create a classroom blog for students to utilize when writing reading responses instead of the traditional pen and paper method.
ReplyDeleteI don't think blogging is a viable option in most classrooms. Few schools are able to afford the technology that is required to implement an initiative like this.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Heather. I also work with a group of students that struggle with writing. During writing time, they are frequently "set off" or shut down easily. I would love to start blogging with my students once a week as a form of student-parent communication. The students' job will be to blog about something they learned or something that happened that week, while the parents' job will be to comment on their child's post over the weekend. Although my classroom doesn't have enough computers for each student to be blogging simultaneously, I will bring them to the computer lab to do so.
ReplyDeleteI personally love the idea of students blogging, I just think it would certainly take a lot of time and effort to get it started (definitely worth it). I feel that at first I would start it off as an optional activity and then have children see the excitement of others which would hopefully spread to others wanting to join in. With 5 computers in my classroom, I would need to create a rotating schedule to allow everyone computer time. I think it is essential to get students excited about writing, and to be creative and express themselves and blogging seems like it could be a crucial piece of the puzzle!
ReplyDeleteThere's a lot of things that blogging can help. There are some blogging sites for kids for a start. This can definitely help the little ones with their creativity and writing.
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