I have been using KidBlog in my Grade 6 classroom for two years and the feedback from parents and students has been very positive. Students post what they have been working on in the classroom and parents are able to keep track of their progress and see what they are doing at school.<\/p>\n
At the beginning of this school year, I wanted to look for new ways to use our class blog to enrich students writing, thinking, and reflection. I wanted to use the blog as an outlet for students to develop their ‘writers voice’. What I thought would be an easy task has proven to be more difficult and challenging then I expected. Students love to post their formal assignments and projects but when asked to comment on a classmates post or reflect on an article I have posted, their comments and reflections are very literal and lack “deeper thinking”.<\/p>\n
While researching and reading different strategies of how to enrich student thinking and reflection using blogs, I stumbled upon a couple of articles from the KidBlog Digest. These articles were not jam-packed with educational research but were written by Grade 6 teachers themselves. It was interesting to read about their perspectives and the challenges they face with blogs and their grade 6 students. In one article about titled “Students Voice and Choice” the author notes:<\/p>\n
“when students feel comfortable making choices which suit their individual style of learning and interest, we increase ownership and engagement. When students feel like making choices is expected, only then will they venture out more progressive ideas and opinions. Only then will they express their voices.”<\/strong> (http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/annotated\/cf38f8b36e58290efaa5253d60ed04d4)<\/em><\/p>\n This article has now led to the formation of my Action Plan:\u00a0How can I use our class blog more effectively to develop students voice and reflection?<\/em><\/p>\n My ultimate goal is for students to change their view of our blog from\u00a0place where they post their work to an outlet which\u00a0allows them to make choices, have a voice, and think critically about the writing process as a whole.<\/p>\n Draft Plan:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n 1) Online Journaling-\u00a0Students will post a blog entry every week about any topic they would like to write about.<\/em><\/p>\n 2) Commenting-\u00a0Students will comment on a classmates blog once a month\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n 3) Consistent teacher feedback<\/p>\n Questions to think about…\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n 1) How can I incorporate\u00a0the SAM-R model to create constructive ‘commenters’ and reflective writers in the classroom? How do I ensure that the blog is progressing from the substitution and augmentation level to the modification and redefinition level of the continuum?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I have been using KidBlog in my Grade 6 classroom for two years and the feedback from parents and students has been very positive. Students post what they have been working on in the classroom and parents are able to keep track of their progress and see what they are doing at school. At the … Continue reading “Action Plan- Blogging and Reflection in a Junior Language Classroom”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,8,6],"class_list":["post-34","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-action-plan","tag-actionplan","tag-reflection","tag-samr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/amandalupo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/amandalupo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/amandalupo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/amandalupo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/amandalupo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/amandalupo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/amandalupo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/amandalupo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/amandalupo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}