Blogging for Kids

Having a blog myself, I thought it would be great if my fifth and sixth graders could get in on the action. My teaching partner (younger and more technically savvy than I) found a safe site that is private and can only be viewed by the administrator (me), the kids, and their parents. So every Monday we troop into the computer lab and write blogs. Of course first I had to educate them on what a blog is.  Texting they get, blogging was new. So they go to a computer, type in the web address find their name and type their password. Ready, set, they can write their own blogs, read their classmates' blogs and even write comments.  They get as much satisfaction out of reading other people's work as they do writing their own.

Doing this is more work for me which I neglected to consider beforehand, naturally.  I have to read and approve every post and every comment before it can be published to the site. The blogs are pretty much limited to the number of kids but the comments...yikes! These kids love to comment. I might have 26 blogs to read and 50 comments. Most comments are kind and supportive I have to admit.  But I have one child on the autistic scale who is honesty personified. I have to trash some of his comments like: "LAME!" or "Your grammar is bad!" or even "Why did you do something so stupid?"  I may agree with his comments but in this case honesty is not the best policy.

I'm beginning to be afraid that our blogging is not long for the web. Just this week when we logged onto the site we started getting an automatic message from the school district that that site was restricted and could not be accessed.  It did let us on, though that message remained in the background. If it does eventually kick us out I'll be royally pissed off. The district blocks so many sites already it's hard to use the internet as a research or teaching tool.

But in this case the site is safe and private and supervised so I can't see the problem. I think, wait, I know, the district just uses a broad hand to block sites without knowing anything about them. There is a lot of teaching that can go on while blogging. My kids already text each other and use Facebook without much instruction or supervision. So this is a great way for them to learn some good rules about using the internet for social exchanges.

The rules I have for blogging are good rules for all public internet sites.  No trashing other people, no bad language, read it over before you send it, and be positive and kind toward others. No naming names either. Using people's names might be ok for this site because it's closed but they need to get in the habit of maintaining their privacy as well as the privacy of others online.

Their blogs are also good writing tools.  They see first hand why spelling and punctuation and complete sentences are important when they read or try to read each other's unedited writing. They are starting to be more careful with spelling at least and recognize poor writing when they see it. It makes for a few good teaching moments. Writing skills taught with a light hand, very 21st century.

Most of all though, blogging is a good way to get kids interested in writing. They can write about whatever they want within certain limits. And they can write as little or as much as they want. They LOVE it.  After they're done with their post they can't wait to read what other people wrote. Every writer wants someone to read their "stuff" and this is a great way for kids to have an audience for their work.

But, I'm waiting for the "block" to fall. Anything fun and interesting in education today is usually shut down as soon as the administration (dum de dum dum) gets wind of it. Until we're blocked though, the kids in room 15 can be found every Monday at a computer, writing, writing, writing.