Student Blogging for Self Reflection

I spent some time over the summer brainstorming ways to incorporate blogging in my classroom. After a bit of goal setting and planning, I’m excited to share that we’ve made great progress this week! To get the most bang for our buck, I’ve decided to teach my students about reflective blogging. Teaching students to reflect and process their learning while also setting their own learning goals is a great way to increase student agency.  

I recently read an excerpt from Larissa Pahomov’s book, Authentic Learning in the Digital Age: Engaging Students Through Inquiry. It explained that relevant student reflection must be metacognitive, applicable, and shared. I’ve incorporated Pahomov’s example guiding questions to teach my students metacognitive reflection. I think this will help my students to slow down and actually process their learning, rather than simply complete their work. Their reflections will be applicable because we will reflect each week, rather than only at the end of grading periods, so students will have the opportunity to think about their learning, set goals, and make changes. Finally, student reflections will be shared through student blogs.  

This week we explored how a blogging community interacts and communicates. I was inspired by the work that this teacher is doing with her class and followed her example of first practicing with “paper blogs” and post-it comments. We practiced reflecting on our learning and commenting on peer writing. By the end of the week, our classroom was abuzz with excitement and conversation as students published their first blog posts and began commenting with their peers. They took ownership and named their blogs things like Blog Boy, Learning Like a Boss, and Student Power.

Blogging Benefits

Building Community

Online communities are great for connecting individuals with similar interests who otherwise would not have met. They are also a wonderful way to build classroom community. I was amazed this week as I read through student blogs. My learners were open and vulnerable in their initial posts in ways that they wouldn’t have been in a typical classroom conversation, sharing about struggles that they faced this week and how they wanted to improve next time. Even better, the comments that their friends made built up our learning community! One of my students had a particularly rough morning and chose to blog about it. Her classmates were so positive and supportive in their comments that she left her disappointment behind and had a terrific afternoon. That’s the power of a great community!  

Authentic Audience

My students took a great deal of pride in their writing when their blogs were published for their peers to read. They were motivated to create interesting content because their peers are serving as an authentic audience. They were so excited to hear that we would be blogging each week because they found a sense of purpose in the work I was asking them to do. They took ownership of their work and wanted it to be their very best.

Equal Access

One of the greatest benefits for using online blogging is that my struggling writers can use Google Read and Write to create interesting writing and respond to their peers. They are not left out of our community due to difficulties they might face when writing with paper and pencil. Technology gives all my learners full access to our class blogs.

Student Voice

Blogging allows open conversations to start between students allowing every student to have a voice. During a typical classroom sharing activity, students usually would only have time to share with one or two friends. With a blog, though, students aren’t limited in that way. They can comment anytime and anywhere, extending student voice beyond our face-to-face interactions.  

Avoiding Possible Issues

Internet Safety

Most blogging sites are blocked by our filter for a good reason. Both privacy and safety are major concerns when young students participate in an online community. While my fourth graders are learning digital citizenship concepts, we need a safe space to put our learning into practice. For these reasons, I’ve created a sheltered blogging experience for my students using Google Docs. Our class homepage acts as a directory, linking each student’s blog, so that our writing is easily shared within our safe environment.

Shallow Comments

In order for students to benefit fully from participating in an online learning community, they must learn the purpose for online commenting. Rather than simply commenting “Me too!” or giving shout outs to friends, online commenting can allow students to engage the writer through connections and questions. In order to avoid shallow comments, I’ve taught a series of lessons building upon our peer-feedback skills. We first explored examples of real blogs and their comments and then practiced making strong comments in response to student projects published on our learning hub.

Static vs. Dynamic Environment

I really want engaged learners in our online community. It would be so disappointing for students to lose interest in blogging because they feel like no one is reading or commenting on their blog. For this reason, I’ve taught my students the playground analogy that I read about on Dean Shareski’s blog. He teaches students that in order to make a friend, you must first be a friend. In other words, if students want their peers to read and comment on their blog, they must also read and comment on other blogs. This can lead to a dynamic online environment in which student comments build upon each other, ensuring that every student can remain engaged and connected.  

Next Steps

For the rest of this grading period, I plan to take time each week to teach mini lessons about blogging and self reflection while also applying digital citizenship principles that we have learned. My main goals with this project are to foster a love for writing, deeply process learning tasks while and develop a positive classroom community. I think we are off to a great start!

Looking Back and Planning Ahead

Quarter One Recap

Over the summer, I spent some time reflecting about the changes I wanted to make to my instructional practices this school year. I set two very large goals. First, I decided move to a math workshop model for daily math instruction. During our first quarter, we successfully settled into the daily expectations and flow of learning. My co-teacher and I have seen huge student benefits using this model including small group instruction, daily differentiation, and greater student motivation. With teaching about six or seven students at a time, we also have a much clearer understanding of each student’s progress toward mastery. At the end of quarter one, we started moving toward blended learning by incorporating technology into our workshop. We are excited to move forward with our workshop model next grading period.

My second large goal for this year is to incorporate at least one student project inspired by my graduate school learning each grading period. During the first quarter, my students used their Chromebooks to record video book talks and provide peer feedback as a performance assessment for our first language arts unit. My students learned important language concepts and technology skills while boosting their confidence when publishing work online.

Quarter Two Projects

There are two projects that I think my students are ready to take on this grading period that I’m pretty excited about!

Visual Literacy and Graphic Novels

I recently had a Donor’s Choose grant funded by some very generous donors to supply my class with sets of graphic novels. I learned all about the importance of visual literacy for our 21st century students this summer. I studied the benefits of graphic novels in teaching visual literacy, and now I plan to apply those concepts during small group instruction.

Some educators and parents are probably skeptical about using graphic novels and comics to teach reading skills and concepts. I used to agree with the stigma that comics and graphic novels aren’t “real reading” because I thought you need lots of text in order to engage in deep comprehension and improve reading skills. I’ve learned, though, that graphic novels are actually quite sophisticated. They require readers to practice abstract skills like making inferences, understanding symbolism and metaphors, and using point of view. What better way to engage reluctant readers to analyze text for deeper meaning?

Graphic novels also provide our students with practical and motivating ways to interpret information in different ways than traditional prose. More and more, student are acquiring information on the internet through videos, graphic depictions, models, and interactive learning modules. Learning to analyze and understand images through reading graphic novels is both relevant and beneficial for our digital learners.

If you’re interested in reading more about using graphic novels in your reading instruction, I recommend these two quick resources: NCTE’s Using Graphic Novels in the Classroom, and Scholastic's Comic Books.  

Student Blogging

There are so many potential learning benefits with student blogging. Not only can student create content for an authentic audience, they also have ownership and purpose for their writing. This quarter, I am having my students complete a weekly blog post to reflect on their learning for the week. They can post about anything they learn about as a way of processing their learning and setting goals for the following week. Classmates can comment and make connections to their peers, and parents can track their student’s weekly reflections and support their learning at home.

I have chosen to have student blogs center around reflection because I think it is a valuable learning task that is currently lacking in my classroom. Mindshift’s writing, What Meaningful Reflection On Student Work Can Do for Learning, says that in order for reflection to be meaningful, it must be metacognitive, applicable, and shared with others. I think it will take time to coach my students toward this type of reflection and away from simple summarization, but I think it will be incredibly beneficial for their learning.  

Blogging and Website Creation

I started this blog about three months ago. I spent a considerable amount of time designing the visual aspects you see here as well as planning content, and with each new idea I had, I always considered my reader and how I might best communicate with you. At first, I was extremely nervous about publishing my ideas and work for anyone to find on the web. Now I look forward to hearing your comments and receiving emails from various readers. My sphere of influence has grown exponentially and I am able to collaborate with teachers who I haven’t met face to face.

When I consider my experiences blogging thus far, I realize that there are wonderful possibilities for my own students in website creation and blogging. Outside of social media, I think blogs and vlogs are the primary way people digitally share interests, experiences, and knowledge today. Empowering students in this way teaches critical 21st century digital literacy skills such as using technology tools, recognizing evidence of quality resources, composing messages in a variety of formats for various purposes, participating in a creative community, and sharing ideas with others.  

Before having students create their own websites and blogs, I would encourage students to explore a variety of example sites. Students can observe and identify key components of an effective website or blog that they can later incorporate into their own work. This step in the learning process allows students access to skills they will need as well as practice critically analyzing quality websites. Once students have a foundation knowledge of how websites and blogs work, they will be ready to begin creating their own sites, practicing various digital literacy skills.

Graphic Design

When students begin to create their own websites, they can practice basic graphic design principles such as the use of color, font, and white space. Students also practice balancing text with visual content to create clear messages. I found these Blog Design Tips for Non-designers very helpful when creating my own blog. It includes visuals of each tip that would be helpful to show students

To aid the reader, website creators and bloggers should keep their work simple and clean by limiting themselves to two fonts and no more than three colors. I found Coolors, a color scheme generator, very helpful when designing my blog. In general, the bulk of the written text should be black, allowing readers to focus on the content. Students should also avoid overfilling their space, deliberately using white space to increase legibility.

In general, less is more. Too many fonts, colors, and extras only distract the reader from the message the author is trying to send. Teaching students the need to avoid “clicky clicky bling bling,” a tendency to dress up boring or inadequate content by adding visual or audio effects, is critical in ensuring quality digital products. For more tips about graphic design, see my blog post titled, Creating Online Content: Advice from a Pro.

Authorship and Audience

While students used to simply consume content in a passive role, today’s learners need to be active participants in their learning. One way for them to achieve this is by creating and publishing their own content online. Instead of simply completing assignments for a grade, students have an authentic purpose for creating content and publishing their work.

If we are teaching our students to be critical consumers of media, then they can use those same skills to critique and reflect on their own work. Rather than considering media with a critical eye for what the author is attempting to communicate, students become the author and use their digital literacy skills to present a message for their target audience. What a great opportunity for students to apply the skills they are learning including audience, message, purpose, and point of view.

Creating their own work and having the power to publish it for others to see gives students a new purpose for their learning. Students in my class were so excited to see their work or picture featured on my blog this year. They find a sense of motivation and meaning in work that is shared with others. After all, who doesn’t like feeling proud of their work?

Allowing students to publish their work on a website or blog also allows them to participate in a global community. In the past, students were able to display their projects and learning for their classmates, parents, and other individuals face-to-face. Today, however, web 2.0 applications have make social production accessible to virtually all Internet users. Student authors are no longer constrained by their location in sharing their work.  

Communication Skills

Clearly communicating ideas and information in a variety of formats is essential for our 21st century learners. Student websites and blogs promote a variety of skills associated with communication. Students would also be able to incorporate original and existing visual content to communicate ideas to their audience. Infographics are a great way to communicate information in an interesting way for readers, and students could easily incorporate these into their work. For more information on infographics, see my blog post titled Literacy 2.0.

Students naturally apply the writing process when planning, creating, and revising content to publish. Organization of content is another skill students would have the opportunity to apply when writing posts and organizing their sites. Finally, students can reflect and analyze their work, improving critical reasoning skills and make conscious decision about how to improve their future work.

Practical Application

So what would it look like for students to publish work online through a website or blog? I’ve been brainstorming for next school year and looking into some resources. If you have ideas to share, please comment below. I’d love to hear from you! Here’s what I’ve come up with so far:

Online Portfolios

What a great way to collect a student’s best work. From subject-specific portfolios for art projects to collaborative classroom portfolios, there are numerous online resources for digital portfolios. Students are able to demonstrate their learning using a variety of tools and formats while storing their work in one central place. While paper portfolios are put away or recycled at the end of a school year, a digital portfolio can be easily accessed for years to come.

Current Event Reflections

This would be a great opportunity for students to first learn about current events and then share their reflections. They could pose solutions to common problems, persuade their audience to take action, or make connections to other social issues.

Comic Strips

Challenge students to demonstrate their understanding of various topics and lessons by creating comics. Comics require the author to convey information visually since there is so little space for text. Authors must make purposeful decisions about what information is included or left out to make a clear message. See my blog post titled Using Comics to Teach Literacy for more information about the benefits of incorporating comics and graphic novels in your teaching.

A Fourth Grader's Guide to Everything

As students master various concepts and skills, they can create a series of how-to resources as teaching tools for other students. Students can choose the format of their information based on the content they wish to explain. A variety of resources can be chosen from including teaching charts, infographics, written explanations, and simple videos.