I thought I would share a recent e-mail from our grade 8 English teacher, Mr. R, who just started blogging. Mr. R sent this e-mail to all middle/high school staff just a few days after he started blogging with his students:

Well MS/HS teachers it was only a matter of time that the enthusiasm and passion for technology lept from the IT department and began to spread across the curriculum. I am sure it is because I am a computer geek at heart, or maybe it is because IT integration is one of the main components of the WASC action plan, but I have jumped on board the IT ship full speed.

Besides the Newspaper, I have helped all my 8th grade students create blogs. With Ms.C’s help, every eighth grader now has a blog and can maneuver at the most basic level. They can post text, a link, and an image. This only took us one period! I hope to work with her further to really tap the full potential of this technology, but for now, I am sharing this information with you because at least for now all the 8th graders, and from what I am told the 6th graders have blogs.

So what does this mean to you as a MS or HS teacher? There is no reason why their blogs should only be for one subject. This is the way Ms. C, Mr. S and I have envisioned this project: All of these blogs will simply be a place where students can gather, collect, categorizes, and share their writing, whether it is an English, poem, Social Studies research or discussion questions, or a math reflection post. They can label each post as necessary and have everything they write at school, open and accessible to be read by the entire community , they can take all of their work with them to anywhere on the globe.

Ultimately, I could go and read a student’s math reflection, while the math teacher could comment on the same student’s poem. I understand the need we writers have to be read, and there is no better place than the blog to allow students to begin to understand the concept of audience. Too many times only the specific subject teacher is the person who reads any given assignment, but this way, each student can share their work with peers, teachers, administrators, parents, students in other grades etc… It only takes one teacher per grade level to set up their students with blogs, then all the other teachers can simply have the students post work on an existing blog. Ideally a student would create a blog in 6th grade and maintain it until they graduate.

So what I am trying to say in my typical longwinded fashion, is that these blogs are up and running for the 8th grade! If you were to tell an 8th grader to write something and post it on their blog and categorize it as “Math” or “Science” or “Art” They could do it. I am sure Ms. C could show you how to set up your own blog to run the show. It is that easy!

Please take the time to snoop around. Keep in mind this has been up for only two days, so there is still much work to do. But look on the right hand side and explore the pages I have created about the ESLRs, my English Standards, Why We Blog etc…to get a better idea of the power this technology can give the students and teachers. I am going to be sending this email out to all the parents in my grade as well, so hopefully they too can begin to be a part of our learning community, by not only reading their own child’s work (which they seldom do) but they can also comment on it, and they can read to see what other students are doing as well. So they can have an idea of why maybe Johnny only got a B. They will have other work to compare it to.

I have also created the All-Star Writing Club, to showcase some of the best work on any given assignment. Here is a link for my first reflective journal post. If you teach any of these students, please take the time to read their work and make a few comments. I think they will really appreciate your time and comments.

So please stay tuned, and follow your students through the year and see what they are doing, thinking, feeling, saying, writing across the curriculum. Or for now at least in English!

Mr. R

Talk about enthusiastic! I am so impressed with the way Mr. R has motivated and enthused his students to share their writing. I can see the excitement buzzing around the 8th graders already. It’s not enough just to have a teacher start a blogging project, it’s the enthusiasm and energy and excitement of that teacher that motivates the students.

My favorite part: “Too many times only the specific subject teacher is the person who reads any given assignment, but this way, each student can share their work with peers, teachers, administrators, parents, students in other grades etc…” This is exactly what we are trying to accomplish – a community of learners no longer limited by our classroom walls. Rock on Mr. R!