I have decided that in the near future I am going to let my 5th graders share their learning with each other, their parents, and a world-audience using Kidblog. I’m planning on doing this for a few reasons:

1. I want my students to have an audience for their writing that goes past me. I have started to do this already by “publishing” our work as a class book and giving a copy to each student to read and take home as well as a copy for our classroom library. I have found when I started this it increased motivation and work quality from previous years. I am excited to see what will happen when they know their work can be viewed by people from all over the planet–scare them? Excite them? I think they’ll get a kick out of it.
2. This is a more selfish goal–If I have them publish a writing piece every few weeks then I will pledge that I will do the same. We’ll keep each other accountable. I already do that with our independent reading (I read with them and keep a notebook just like they do). I’ve been meaning to utilize this blog as a reflective tool. I can’t think of a better way to stick with that goal than to have thirty ten-year-olds get on me for not publishing a recent piece.

I’ll keep the parameters of the student blog fairly simple. I already have them publishing narratives, poetry, informational articles, and opinion pieces on paper/digital Docs–all they would need to do is copy/paste into their blog.

It will add new wrinkles, besides the whole world audience thing, such as asking them to read and comment on a number of their classmates’ pieces. This could be an authentic gateway to digital citizenship which is important to go over with kids. It also allows easier access for parents and extended family to view their student’s work.

I’m trying to foresee challenges that could arise–possibly a parent objecting to having their child’s work published for an open audience. I’m thinking a “heads-up” notice at the beginning of the year with signed parent permission will take care of that. If I did have a parent object I could always make the blog private.

The International Society for Technology in Education (ITSE) student standards calls for students to be able to “create original work” and “communicate information and ideas effectively to multiple audiences using a variety of media and formats.”  I think blogs might be a great way to achieve that standard.