21st Century Pen Pals: Blogging with Students

This fall I will return to the classroom after being an instructional coach for the past three years.  In that time I have become a blogger.  I love blogging and have been thinking about how blogging could benefit my students.

The more I think about the pros and cons about blogging with students, the more excited I get about the benefit and opportunities blogging will create for my students.

After doing some research and asking teachers from my PLN that are already blogging with their students, I have chosen www.kidblog.org as my class/student blog platform next year.

Kidblog was designed for students and educators and offers wonderful features for both function and safety.  (I am not being paid by Kidblog.org!)

I am not a Kidblog expert but after setting up a fake class and testing it out, I will share some of the highlights and reasons why I have selected this platform.

Kidblog Highlights

1. Easy to set up.

2. Free class blog and 25 individual student blogs all attached to the class blog which puts everything in one place making your student blogs easy to find

3. Very reasonable yearly upgrade fee of $25 (completely worth it)

4. Wonderful safety features that allow you to customize who can view and comment on posts

5. Easily connect with other classrooms across the globe who also use Kidblog

Benefits of a Class Blog

Blogging is very authentic and transparent.  Having a class blog will allow me to share what students are learning with parents better than any newsletter can.  It provides a view into the amazing learning taking place within our 4 walls for 6 hours each day. It also helps parents feel included in their child’s learning and day to day experiences as we share photos, videos and students’ work.

I also feel a class blog will help build a deeper level of trust with parents, as well as, a greater confidence and respect for the hard work we as teacher do everyday in the classroom.

Benefits of Student Blogs

Students are highly motivated to complete activities and assignments when they involve some form of technology. Blogging provides students with a real audience that cares and will engage with them.  In particular, I see great benefits in the area of writing.  Student can publish their writing on their personal blog and parents and classmates can then respond to their writing.

Remember back when we were kids, when we had Pen Pals? Blogging takes Pen Pals to a whole new level. Kidblog has a feature that allows you to invite and connect with other classes who also use Kidblog.

Connecting with other classrooms around the country or world allows you to make your class’ learning global! Your imagination is your only limitation at this point. Opportunities for learning, collaboration and information sharing are infinite.

I feel like I have only begun to scratch the surface as to the vast benefits of blogging with students in the classroom.  Once I actually begin blogging with my students next year I will be able to share tips and tricks to help you get started with blogging with your classroom and share about my learning experience.