Putting it all out there... a newbie bloggers journey

“Focus on the journey, not the destination. Joy is found not in finishing an activity but in doing it.”

-Greg Anderson

First Impressions

Blogging - The act of writing a blog which is short for web log. It's a user generated website written as a diary or journal. Subjects for blogging include commentary on politics or current events, recipes, or anything of interest to the 'blogger'

Before this course and it's mandatory weekly blog assignment 'blogging' was self-defined in my head as "a process for intelligent, creative people with worthwhile ideas to use to share with interested audiences."  Putting myself in that category was out of the question.  I've never considered myself to be a strong writer and I have always been fairly average in all my endeavours and personality traits; I'm not particularly funny, creative or intelligent.  Consequently, the idea of blogging and putting myself out there was petrifying.  Fears and questions swirled in my head:

• What will I write about? (technically, this question had an easy resolution due to assigned topics each week)
• Who will read? (anybody other than my professor or colleagues?)
• What will people think of me? (will I be thought of as intelligent? witty? knowledgable? a rookie? inspiring? annoying? promising?)

Of course, with this blog there is also the fact that it is graded every week looming over my head as well, making me watch every word even further.  All of these factors led to some severe writer's block.  After all, in the real world my personality has always been more of an introspective "thinker".  In my university classes I will more often listen rather than speak up.  Why?  I believe for some of the same fears and concerns I experienced when preparing to blog.  Once something is said, it's out there for challenge and criticism by others, and, often, the ideas formed in my head do not translate well to my mouth for intelligent response.  This is where blogging intensifies this effect: once your ideas are posted in black and white on the web, that's it, it's out there in the web archives forever!  It's open to comment and criticism from not just a handful of fellow classmates but to a potential worldwide audience of people much more savvy with these topics.  

Bringing it Home

Before beginning my discussion on the basic process I followed to get started with blogging I think it is necessary to have a quick discussion about RSS.  RSS is a concept that I had no idea about before beginning this course.  Sure, I had seen the orange button on many sites, but never knew what to do with it.  This video helps explain the basics:

Will Richardson (2010) calls RSS the "new killer app for educators" (p. 71).  RSS gives you and your students the ability to "read more content from more sources in less time" (p.72).  The ability to bring the materials that interest you on the web to you is the power of Really Simple Syndication.  Using my Google account I was able to quickly set up a feed aggregator in Google Reader.  By simply pasting the URL of my favourite blogs into the "add a subscription" button, I made certain any updates would show up in one place.  My "Daily Me" now waits for me every time I log on to my laptop.  I make sure to spend ten minutes out of my day to skim the contents of my Reader for new and interesting posts.  I can star them for later or click to follow to the site if my interest is piqued.  I have also created some folders in my Reader.  I have a folder for personal or hobby reading and one that contains only the updates from my fellow classmate's blogs.  That way, if I only have two minutes to check my Reader, I can ignore the personal reading and focus right on the essentials.  

RSS has helped minimize my overwhelmed feelings towards the massive amount of information that is out there.  My Google Reader ensures that if something interesting or groundbreaking in my areas of interest is happening out there, chances are, I'll know about it.  

Upon the encouragement of my professor, I began my journey into blogging by searching out a few blogs of interest to follow.  I was encouraged as I read through the amazing ideas and insights of these educators making a difference in the world of educational technology.  By following their blogs for the last few months (and correspondingly; many of the same people on Twitter as well) I feel as though I have come to know their viewpoints and personalities.  A very small sample of the blogs that I have really connected to include:

• Lee Kolbert's GeekyMomma's Blog - I enjoy Lee's blog for a couple of reasons.  First, it is clear her posts are grounded in the real-world, day-to-day happenings of the classroom, something that it is somewhat rare in this genre.   The confessions laid out in her post entitled "I'm Not Who You Think I Am" had me laughing out loud in recognition and agreement.  And that's another thing: she's funny with a purpose, a good balance of thought-provoking ideas and humour that I can connect with.  

• Will Richarson's Weblogg-ed - It is not surprising that the creator of our base textbook for this course extends his ideas on the web.  Richardson provides thoughtful musings and intelligent discussion on a variety of topics surrounding the Read/Write web.  One post I found rather encouraging is one where Richardson (a guru in my eyes and the eyes of many) echoes many of the same self-conscious feelings I have about blogging.  He discusses the angst he still experiences when pressing publish but adds in this encouraging quote: "one thing I do know is that when I write with a humility of not knowing I get a lot more learning in return."  This is to become my new mantra I think!

• Bill Ferritier's The Tempered Radical - Ferritier's wiki Digitally Speaking has become an invaluable wealth of resources for me throughout this course, so it is no surprise that his blog is another source of good ideas.  [Side note, I was so intrigued with his ideas and practical suggestions for integrating web 2.0 tools in the classroom I recently purchased a copy of Teaching the iGeneration (and it is awesome too!)].

Another source of excellent reading came to my attention when I stumbled upon the Edublog's awards site.  A collection of winners (and shortlisted nominees) for categories including best individual blog, most influential blog post and best teacher blog provided endless amounts of new and interesting content to check out.  And, there's always Edublog's list of elementary/primary blogs.

The actual act of starting my blog was a remarkably simple process.  By clicking my way to Blogger, inputting a few bits of information to create a profile and a page name and I was ready to post my ideas for all to see.  Creating posts in Blogger is remarkably easy, the text editor has many of the same features as the word processing software on my computer.  A couple of times I have had minor issues with formatting: occasionally font sizes and types went wonky and sometimes spaces appear where they shouldn't, but these are minor, cosmetic issues.  Embedding a large variety of multimedia projects using html code is seamless on Blogger and images and video upload perfectly.  Throughout the term, I have made some gains towards finding my blogging voice, but thinking of a clever "hook" and weaving it throughout my post is something that continues to be a struggle.  I look towards blogging after this course and I do think I will.  In some ways, I think it will be easier and less forced than my current assignments are.  I also think it will be less threatening to post shorter bits of information and thoughts or reflections that pop into my head after a lesson in my classroom or using a new tool without having to be graded on the whole affair.  However, one downside to this would be the collapse of my current readership - my classmates and professor are unlikely to continue reading when it is not required.  I think I will look ahead to blogging for more personal reasons at first; my blog will be a "parking lot" for my ideas, reflections, projects and new things I find interesting.  Perhaps it may evolve into something else that people may actually wish to read, but until then, I think it is important for me to keep up the practice.

Bringing it to School

Now that I have been blogging for a while this week it was time to start thinking about how I can use blogging for my classroom and with my students.  There is an endless amount of examples and information on the web about this subject so my task this week was to explore what is out there, reflect on my trials and errors and consider how to integrate the practices of blogging with my students.

First of all, before considering actually getting the students blogging, I wanted to consider the ways in which keeping a classroom blog would benefit my classroom.  George Couros is an innovative principal at a school in Stony Plain, Alberta.  He maintains an excellent blog entitled The Principal of Change.  In a recent post he shared a compiled list of ideas for teachers wishing to connect with students and families through blogging.  Categories for the many responses include student discussion, home-school connections and celebrating classroom successes.  The end of the document contains an impressive list of   classroom blog examples and collections of links.  It is a great place to get started when thinking about blogging for your classroom.

Dean Shareski, a Digital Learning Consultant for a school board in Moosejaw, Saskatchewan recently wrote a post on his Ideas and Thoughts blog about the importance of teacher blogging as a form of reflective practice.  He makes an interesting point regarding teachers that blog in the following quote:

"There’s a natural transparency that emerges. The teachers who blog as professionals in this reflective manner in my district invite anyone to look into their classrooms and you can get a picture of what happens on a daily basis. This goes a long way in addressing accountability concerns."

Teaching can be a truly thankless job.  Traditionally, what happens inside the classroom and school walls is not often brought to the attention of stakeholders (unless, of course, it receives negative feedback).  I see blogging from your classroom as an opportunity to promote yourself and the amazing things your students are doing within those walls.  Inviting parents to comment on content you post and continually updating them on the events of their child's day goes a long way towards establishing open lines of communication.  It is also an amazing way to share resources with other interested teachers.  For the past six years I have taught in a school where there was only one class of each grade.  I longed for the collaboration that came from the "grade group" learning communities my friends at other schools had.  I found myself searching the internet for resources more and more often.  I now see blogging as a way to give back - to put my great ideas and successes out there for others to use and adapt.

The benefits of blogging do not end with the teacher as author.  Getting your students writing blogs can open up a whole world of experience for them.  To me, the magic of student's using a blog to publish their writing lies in the authentic audience it provides.  Students are no longer simply writing in a scribbler for the teacher's opinion, but for a potential global audience.  The following video features Kathy Cassidy, an inspiring educator from Moosejaw, Saskatchewan that is incorporating many new technoloied to create a powerful learning environment for her grade one students.  I must note that in another video featuring an interview with Cassidy, she describes herself as "not a technologically person"!

What I like about this video and the peek inside Cassidy's classroom is the fact that the technology seems to be integrated seamlessly into pedagogically sound teaching practices.  Technology is the tool that facilitates these amazing connections and activities, yet the focus remains on the skills of good writing and interaction.  Cassidy's classroom blog contains posts that highlight happenings and projects in the classroom and each student has a simple blog that is linked off of this page.  Student blogs are simple, just what you would expect from a grade one child.  They blog about what they will be for Halloween or even embed an image they have created that shows a pattern in 4 different ways.  Students are connected to some other classes that blog across the world and have time on the computers when they are encouraged to read and respond to the other student bloggers.  

Lee Kolbert (GeekyMomma) is also using blogging in a similar way with her students.  She maintains a class blog site that contains links to individual student blogs.  The site that she uses, Kidblog, is worth a look from teachers looking for a more closed, kid-friendly atmosphere for their students to blog:

Setting up a class is free, easy and the privacy settings for who can view or comment on blogs are modifiable.  

All of these amazing examples are great but I know that I can't just leap in with both feet and get my students blogging tomorrow.  Important preparation and groundwork will be required to make sure that blogging is a platform for quality writing and not just a novelty to be quickly overrun with poorly thought-out posts and uninteresting comments.  There are many resources out there with advice and tips for getting started.  See the following for more information:

• Ferritier's teacher checklist for blogging projects and teacher tip sheet for blogging projects
• Anne Davis' issues and traits to consider before beginning to blog with your students
• Kim Cofino's "blogging is elementary" series of lessons

Also, it is important to consider the skills students are building when blogging.  A quick glance at the Alberta Language Arts curriculum shows many areas where blogging can be a useful tool to meet objectives.  The NCTE document on twenty-first century literacies also contains a couple of areas where blogging can be a a perfect tool for facilitating these skills: "twenty-first century readers and writers need to be able to build relationships with others to pose and solve problems collaboratively and cross-culturally and design and share information for global communities to meet a variety of purposes."

Ferritier and Garry (2010, p. 56-61) offer some excellent suggestions for beginning to blog with your students, some of which really stuck out to me

1.) Post all content on one classroom blog - This may be an excellent way to get started and manage the content you and your students produce.

2.) Encourage students to become regular readers of others' blogs - It is critical that students learn that blogging are "interactive forums for continuing conversation" that require two-way participation (p. 57). According to Ferritier & Garry this serves three important purposes: (i.) students who read blogs will see models of writing that can be used as exemplars for their own work; (ii.) students are likely to be exposed to ideas for topics they may wish to explore in their own blog posts; and (iii.) reading blogs connects students to potential audiences for their own blogs.

3.) Promote student blog entries to parents and colleagues - Receiving feedback and facilitating the open, two-way conversation that is possible on a blog are critical elements of the process.  To me, promoting your students' blog writing has benefits on both ends.  Students will be motivated by comments from parents, friends, their principal or other teachers and those people will also be happy (and probably impressed!) with the peek inside your classroom.

4.) Teach students to comment on entries written by others - Overall, this is one of the most important elements of the whole process.  Students need to be directly instructed on how to make constructive comments that extend and deepen the discussion.  Ferritier and Garry's reproducible is a thoughtful, step-by-step way to get students thinking about what make a good comment:

Leaving Good Blog Comments


There are a lot of other excellent resources out there to get students writing good comments.  Anne Davis says this: 

"Some of our best classroom discussions emerge from comments. We share together. We talk about ones that make us soar, ones that make us pause and rethink and we just enjoy sharing those delightful morsels of learning that occur. You can construct lessons around them You get a chance to foster higher level thinking on the blogs.”

 

Anne encourages students to use starters such as the following when responding to fellow bloggers:

• This makes me think of...
• I was reminded of...
• I discovered that...
• Your writing made me think that...

Before blogging officially begins, you may consider doing an activity such as this powerful "paper blogging" lesson.  Students learn about effective commenting as they create a poster-board "blog" entry.  Other students are encouraged to read and thoughtfully respond on a good, old-fashioned post-it note.  The document "The art and aspirations of commenters" created by McTeach is a good resource to share with your students during an activity such as this.  

5.) Remind students to respond to comments - A key to encouraging visitors to come back is responding to comments - this is a two-way process, remember!

With these considerations in mind and some hard work at the beginning, I believe blogging with your students can be an amazing undertaking.  I look forward to returning to the classroom and trying it out! 

Packing up and Moving on

As I near the end of my journey I look back on my experiences with blogging throughout this course.  While it was not a comfortable thing for me to do; it has been a very rewarding endeavour.  I look forward to seeing where my future blogging experiences will take me.  

"Writing stops; blogging continues.  Writing is inside; blogging is outside.  Writing is monologue; blogging is conversation.  Writing is thesis; blogging is synthesis"

-Richardson, 2010 p. 30

References

Ferritier, W.M. & Garry, A. (2010). Teaching the iGeneration: 5 easy ways to introduce essential skills with web 2.0 tools.  Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.

Richardson, W. (2010).  Blogs, wikis, podcasts and other powerful web tools for classrooms.  Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.