So I introduced my students to our class blog today. It produced some interesting results. To be honest, I was really thinking that they would be totally into it and that some of them would already be familiar with blogs. I was pretty much wrong.
First, the kids didn’t have a clue as to what a blog was, and I’m not sure that I was as prepared as I should have been to explain it properly.
Second, while I think a few of the kids were into it, many of them weren’t interested at all. I think this has to do with two things. Partly because I have a disruptive student in my classroom who can convince the rest of my kids that what I teach is dumb. Partly because I think my students aren’t sure of what they should write.
Finally, the way most of them began with their responses really surprised me. They wrote as if they were participating in an IM chat. They didn’t use sentences, there were no capital letters – ANYWHERE, half of what they had to say didn’t really make much sense at all. Also, many of them insulted the idea of blogging all together in their comments, which really disappointed me.
I really wanted this blogging thing to be a fun, interesting learning experience, and I know my kids could get a lot out of it, but I knew things couldn’t continue like this. I thought about giving a lecture in proper blogging etiquette in class tomorrow, but instead sent them all an e-mail with some simple rules and guidelines for our blogging. I wanted to get the point across, but not in a lecture type of way. I am really hoping that this will help us move forward in a more positive direction from this point.
