Blogging for Good Writing

Two arguments for blogging in the classroom:  First it creates an artifact that can be reviewed indefinitely.  Second, it causes young writers to think more critically about their writing.

Assignments given at the beginning of the year can be compared against assignments given towards the end of the year.  Students will be able to view their progress, and more specifically, where and when they mastered certain essential concepts.  Editing their own work for grammar errors would be a powerful means of reinforcing good writing practices.

I believe students are much more interested in what their peers think about them than a teacher or even a parent.  Creating a safe and structured environment where they could work collaboratively on writing assignments would be a powerful means of instruction.  It might also be fun.  Here is a link to a writing assignment lesson plan I would use in a language arts classroom.

Privacy for young learners

So, how do we keep middle school age children safe and utilize the power of blogger at the same time?  There are privacy settings in Blogger that allow the student to restrict access to his or her blog to a select group of people.  All of the work that they do will be saved indefinitely and all of the options to create unique and powerful digital artifacts will remain available, however no one will be able to view his or her work unless expressly invited through email.  Invitations can be rescinded as well.