Appropriate Comments

As I approached blogging with my class I thought it would simple.  Our first project was simple.  Transfer our mission statement Wordles to our class blogs and make comments.  The transfer was easy.  We briefly talked about making comments.  I thought they had the picture.  Make positive comments.  No texting words.  Proper sentences, after all this is for school.  Many of the comments were superficial.  They commented on the font and the colour.  Yet the content of the wordle was a mission statement!

What to do?  I reviewed the information I had read.   Berger and Trexler (2010) say "Give Students, formal hands-on training session on how to interact with your blog"(p. 108). So, I found an excellent site called Notes From McTeach.  We restarted our blog by creating a paper blog.  Please check out the instructions on the site.  But in short form, we did a very "hands-on" blogging exercise.  Students created a paper blog about a passionate subject.  On Thursday afternoon, they commented using sticky notes.  Some students understood immediately but others need more time.

We had parent-teacher-student interviews on Friday so the complete follow up discussion.  From our initial discussion, many students seem to understand how the appropriate comments made them feel.  Blogging will take longer to develop than I thought but that is okay.  It is better to blog well than to blog poorly.  

Here are some pictures of my students paper blogging.

References:

Berger, P., & Trexler, S. (2010). Choosing Web 2.0 tools for learning and teaching in

 a digital world. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.

McMillan, K. (2011). Notes From McTeach. Retrieved from 

        http://www.notesfrommcteach.com/p/about-me.html




Other useful links:


http://www.adrianbruce.com/blogging/why_blog/why_blog_with_students.htm

http://murcha.wordpress.com/2008/03/14/20-reasons-why-students-should-blog/

http://mrspripp.blogspot.com/2011/05/14-steps-to-meaningful-student-blogging.html