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The title of this K12Online 2007 presentation by Jeff Utecht is Sustained Blogging in the Classroom. I have to say that I am happy that I chose this presentation to watch because it has to do with the practical side of student blogging. As teachers, I’m pretty sure we’ve all been in the situation of trying out something that we know is good for us and for our students, maybe it just a cool factor, but we don’t keep doing it because it feels “extra” and it’s not a part of the structure of our classrooms. So, Jeff Utecht has some great ideas to try to keep you and you students blogging. One important tip is to move blogs from the role of a journal to that of a conversation. His contention is that blogging is perfect for that because it gets students to read, which we want them to do and also to write. Not only that, other students will respond (creating conversation) and provide meaningful feedback for that student.
Jeff highlighted the classroom blogging in two teacher’s classrooms, Mark Ahlness and Clarence Fisher. It is really helpful to see just how each organized the student blogging experience and also helpful to see that they were by no means identical. We need to create the situation that fits the needs of the students and the teachers working with the blogs. I especially liked Mark Ahlness‘ idea of allowing the students to choose between reading a book, magazine or blogs during his class silent reading time. Clarence Fisher changed the physical arrangement of his classroom to betterfacilitate the things he wanted to happen there, including blogging.
There is so much more in this presentation, including the idea of setting up personal learning networks for students, modelling good blogging by maintaining one of your own for your students, and having students create the rubric for great blogging that they want to be assessed by when it’s time for grades.
Another piece that I valued from this was the explanation of how to introduce blogs to students. He suggests that you have them just read other blogs first, then second have them add comments to blogs and then finally have them start their own blogs. This makes perfect sense, as they learn what a blog is about before they are responsible for creating one. I think this is a simple concept, but I’m not sure that is how I would have structured my first lesson this school year, so I am really happy to have that information.

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