Blogging 2.0

There were three important things that I didn't include in the first blogging post, partly because it was already soooo long and covered more than enough for one sitting. Partly because these three are important enough for their own post.

They are:

* Blogging sites/platforms for use in a classroom

* Student email accounts (needed for some of the above platforms)

* Guidelines and/or rubrics for student use of blogs

I'm sure that my post won't be an exhaustive look at these topics, just what I've learned while clicking around and getting more familiar with using blogs to promote student learning.

Blogging Platforms

Blogger		Google's blog platform and the host of this site. Sometimes blocked by FSPS, sometimes not. I'm hoping that it will be approved for use, as I'm sure it will work well with other Google tools. It even has video tutorials!
Gaggle		Provides safe, teacher-controlled email, blogs, message boards, and social “walls," all filtered. This is a paid service, but FSPS has paid for the entire district. All you have to do is take a PD training course. And one of the interesting things: the filters snag on “text language,” so students have to write real words! Bwahahaha!
Edublogs		Education-oriented site. Blogs can be free (with advertising) or a "premium" paid membership is available. This can be accessed on FSPS computers, but Oretha told us that since they have started a paid service, the free accounts can have automatic links created in your posts that take a viewer to sites that you don't control, and they can't be turned off.
Kidblog		While clicking around in the "Explore" area of the class wiki (mentioned in last post), I kept seeing references to this platform. It was created by a teacher in MN, and is set up especially for a simplified blogging experience for elementary and middle school ages. I don't know if it is accessible on district computers, but it looks like it would be a good addition.

There are many others. Some of the ones I see most are: Edmodo and 21classes, which are designed specifically for classroom use, and Wordpress or Live Journal (where I follow a YA author), which are more mainstream and therefore probably blocked on our district computers. This may be worth looking at in the future, because many bloggers seem to like some of the features of Wordpress (and their layouts), and educators have started talking about a newer feature called Buddypress, which allows for more shared spaces and conversations. If you like, you can explore these and other options. You might want to look at this page, which lists lots of collaborative online tools for class. The section "Blogs, Wikis, and Social Networks" is about halfway down the page.

Student Email Accounts

Creating individual student accounts in some of the above platforms requires each student have an email account. Your students may already have email accounts, but they may not, or they may be unwilling to share that information with the class. There may be lots of ways around this, but if you would like your students to have email accounts, I have two suggestions.

First, the one I will be using is Gaggle (mentioned above). This is a paid service, but if your district, like mine, has already paid - WHY NOT USE IT?? It offers multiple services and all are strongly filtered (some teachers have complained that it is too strongly filtered, but there can be advantages to that, too). It allows each student to have an email address and, at my discretion, to use other features like individual blogs, social "walls" that allow Facebook-like exchanges, message boards, digital lockers (where students can store work in progress, and continue it in other classes or on home computers) and electronic assignment submissions. In our district, teachers are required to attend a short PD training before their accounts are activated. I finally found time to take it this summer, and I'm glad that I did. I think I can use this immediately in my classes.

But if Gaggle is not an option for you at this time, you can set up dummy email accounts in Gmail. One caveat: Do NOT use your school email address for this. It can put a lot of notifications in your inbox and cause you to miss more important messages. Gmail accounts are free, so just set up a new one for yourself or for each of your classes. Then follow the instructions here to set up dummy accounts for each of your students. This will still give you access/control over the student email accounts.

Speaking of control, many teachers might worry about any appropriate use or liability issues with assigning students to create their own email or blog accounts (or other Web 2.0 tools). It's my opinion that if you were to use a mainstream blog platform (like Blogger, here) then you would need to monitor student use of that service pretty regularly. This is one reason that I am excited about using Gaggle this year. Until I know more about all these tools, until I have lesson plans in place and am more comfortable with the digital tasks I will be creating for students, I know I won't have time for extensive monitoring. I will rely on the filtering of Gaggle, along with spot checks (Oretha pointed out that we can use our projectors to show students exactly how easily we can get into their accounts - a little preventive instruction), to keep my students participating in a safe and responsible way. If later I need more features or flexibility, I can adapt from there.

Blog Guidelines and Rubrics

It was pointed out in the training that we may need to teach the students how to write blog posts or responsible comments to others' posts. Our students are experienced in text messaging and social network status updates, not necessarily the kind of writing we want them to create here (not that we need to insist on utter grammatical perfection or five paragraph style, either). I teach 7th graders, and they seem to be just starting to understand that we write, like we speak, in different ways for different situations.

This actually was the basis for the "lesson" that I was trying to create at the end of our blogging workshop. Most of the results (the current version) can be seen if you click on the "Blog Tips" at the top of this page. I'm sure I will be revising this as I need to.

As I read deeper, I have found a group on the English Companion Ning (if you haven't joined - uh, what are you waiting for?). The group is "Using Blogs and Wikis in the English Classroom," and particularly I was reading this post, where I heard such good reports of Kidblog, but also where the discussion veered off to rubrics and grading. One participant attached a document (which I unfortunately cannot do here - but I'll see if I can find a way around it later), but one posted his rubric, and others posted links. Here are the ones that (so far) I liked.

Simple blog rubric that C. Young uses to assess 75-100 blogs. Five criteria (2 points each).

An article K. Wagner wrote for creating a class-tailored blogging rubric.

Another article from C. Fisher that has good information itself, and several further links to explore.

One more article that has some links for rubrics, managing student blogs, etc. Goes into the arguments against grading.

I've found that this is the most endless reading that I've done on blogging yet, since each link or article that I follow leads to even more. Rather than list them endlessly, I invite you to surf around yourself.

Whew! These last two posts have worn me out. Look for something shorter in posts to come. While this is all good information, it is still summer break!