Welcome to Our Class Blog!
We are 7th grade and 8th grade students from Central Illinois. We attend Lewistown Jr/Sr High School, which has students from 7-12 grades. We are the Indians, as our town is home to Dickson Mounds Museum. Our teacher is Mrs. Cremeens. We’re excited to have a place to share literature that we have been hard at work reading and writing. Please leave a comment on the work that speaks to you. We’d love to hear how we’re doing – constructive criticism is welcome – as we’re always looking for ways to improve our writing. Enjoy!
WHY WE BLOG
The benefits of class blogging include:
- Having an authentic audience
- Covering new and traditional literacies
- Forming home-school connections
- Covering digital citizenship authentically
- Providing an online home for digital and analog creations
- Developing thinking and reflection
- Building a classroom community
- Developing essential ICT skills
Here are some teacher reflections on the benefits of class blogging summarized from The State of Educational blogging in 2017/2018.
- Blogging opens up the possibilities of an audience in new ways. When students are writing or publishing for an audience other than the teacher, it impacts how they view what they are doing and the intrinsic motivation they have.
- Students love seeing their work on the internet and adore getting comments from people. It motivates them to write as it gives them an audience that is real. The blog opens up a whole new world of people who can offer encouragement and feedback.
- The blogging experience forces the students to do more reflection on their learning and allows them to showcase products they have produced with online tools.
- Blogging provides an authentic educational experience, where what they write is not only seen and commented on by their teacher, but by their peers and the “public.” For most students, it’s a bit of extra motivation knowing their peers will see their work.
- There is an authentic audience – a global audience – one that is willing to connect, share, challenge, discuss and communicate with classes. This audience can provide further information, opinions, suggest resources, seek answers to questions and so on which pushes blogging further.
- Blogging develops a learning network. Exercise books etc. need not be pushed and crumpled in school lockers only to be placed in the rubbish bins at the end of the school year, but student work is out there for their school lives.
