In my last post, I discussed
the program My Big Campus; the blogging tool I am currently using in my
classroom. After reflecting upon the
positive experiences I have had with this blog in my classroom, I have been
giving great thought to the idea of expanding our classroom’s blog and reaching
a bigger audience. As I become more comfortable with blogging and promoting blogging within my classroom, I thought this would be a great time to start my journey towards reaching a larger audience, in hopes to eventually take our classroom blog interational. I do know that My Big
Campus is being used within my county, so I thought I would start this process by collaborating with another fourth grade class within my county. I
recently came in contact with a fellow fourth grade teacher at a different
school and discussed my interests in expanding my classrooms’ blog. She was delighted and happy to help! In our county, we are both currently teaching
hydroponics to our students. I have
created a Project Based lesson where students collaborate in groups to gather
information on hydroponic plants and construct an actual environment for a hydroponic
plant to survive. I thought this would
be a great opportunity for my students to blog about their thoughts, ideas, and
observations.
As I spoke with the fellow
fourth grade teacher, we came up with the idea to take pictures, and videos of
the students completing this project.
Through the process the students would also blog about their thoughts,
ideas, and observations. Students could
also add websites to their blog where they have gathered information on
hydroponic plants and could take pictures of the environment they created for
their group’s hydroponic plant to grow and survive. Students could also blog about their daily
observations and post progress pictures of their hydroponic plant. Students at the other school would have access
to my classroom blog so that they could comment, and provide additional
information and insight to the environments they have created for their
hydroponic plants.
This initiative to expand my
classroom blog has taken a great deal of time and communication with the other
teacher. But the time and effort has
definitely been paying off! The students
have loved this activity! It has taken
an extensive amount of time to help students learn how to add pictures and
videos to the blog, but many students have taken additional responsibilities in
becoming ‘tech experts’ and helping other students with adding multimedia to
their posts. The students at the other
school have been extremely positive and supportive! The other teacher has done a wonderful job
with keeping consistent communication with me, and having her students continue
communication and collaboration with my students. The project is still in progress, but I must
say I have seen some valuable engagement and student learning so far throughout
this process. All groups created
slightly different environments for their hydroponic plant, and I believe this
project has been positively influential to all of these students to be given
the opportunity to collaborate and communicate with a larger group of peers. I am looking forward to seeing how the
hydroponic plants turn out! This project
has been one of my highlights as a first year, fourth grade teacher, definitely
a wonderful time to remember!
As I move forward, my next
step will be to think about how I can take my classroom’s blog even further and
expanding to an international level.
Baby steps! But I think I am
heading in the right direction. This process
has taught me that in order for this kind of blogging to be successful, all
participants involved have to be consistent with communication. All participants need to have a clear
understanding of the expectations involved, and continuously working together
to complete a common goal. With these
key components, international collaboration through blogging can be successful.
If you are new to expanding online student collaboration like me, check out these websites that provide great tips, activities, and resources to help you get started!
Kendal, what an awesome lesson to incorporate blogs into your classroom. I love that some of your students have taken on the responsibility of becoming 'tech experts'. This gives them leadership responsibility and confidence. I think its great that you have connected with another classroom in the county and have been able to continue the communication, which in one of my blog posts, I said was one of the most difficult part of using a blog.
ReplyDeleteMaybe after your project based lesson is coming to an end, you could have the students blog and share ideas of where they would like to go next with their learning. They can share what they still want to learn about plants or come up with a completely new idea that they want to learn about. What a great way this would be for students to lead their own learning... :)
I loved reading about how you were able to blog and create a classroom without walls! I'll bet your students were absolutely thrilled! You raise a good point about the amount of time it takes to set something like this up, and it always feels like there is not enough time do accomplish everything!
ReplyDeleteI have to ask - how did you find the other teacher? Was it someone you knew? Or did you send an e-mail county-wide? I'm just curious.
Juliana,
ReplyDeleteI have been attending a "math institute" at our board of education. One fourth grade teacher from every school in the county attends to learn about great activities and lessons that align with the Common Core State Standards. There, I was able to communicate and collaborate with other fourth grade teachers and I got along with one of the teachers very well. We ended up being partners in a few activities, and so I decided to contact her to see how she felt about sharing the blogging experience.