Teach ‘Em How to Fish

Parent Note Introducing Blogging

The teachers taking the FPU Tech Festival this summer have requested, and I have promised the note that I sent home to the parents of my students. I will adapt it a bit this coming year, but this might be a good place for you to start.

A note like this is particularly good if you’re going to blog with your students, and:
-if you work in an area where your community is very new to blogging,
-your administration is nervous about it,
-your students’ parents are nervous about it, and/or
-you need clarification about how safe this is.
I based what I wrote here on the safeguards built in to blogmeister. If you use a different tool, make sure that you can deliver on whatever promises of security you make (just in case that wasn’t obvious!)

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Dear Parents,

I want to introduce you to a new and exciting experience that we are about to begin in Room 34. It’s called “blogging”. You may have heard of this, and may have some thoughts or concerns. Let me share some thoughts about this topic.

What is a blog?: The tool we’ll be using is called “Blogmeister”. It is located on the internet at http://classblogmeister.com/
Here is some information directly from that website to help explain blogs, and how they can be used in the classroom.
Perhaps one of the most fascinating tools that has emerged from the Internet cloud in recent years is the Blog. A shortening of the term “weblog”, the blog is an online publishing tool that enables people to easily publish their loves, passions, dislikes, peeves, discoveries, and insights.

Blogging came into its own during the 2004 presidential campaign where all of the major candidates sported their own blogs, and every political pundit daily trashed their opponent candidate with blog articles.

But blogging is also showing up in schools, where teachers have known for a long time that students develop better communication skills when they are authentically communicating. A number of educators are helping their students develop their writing skills by having them publish their work as blogs, and then invite comments from people outside the classroom.

Safety: Anything that a student writes for his/her blog must be approved by me, the teacher. I will get an automatic email to approve or disapprove before their writing is viewable by the public. The public will be able to leave comments to a student’s blog (encouragement, feedback, etc.) These comments must also be approved by me.

Names: An added measure of safety is that no one will know your student’s name, from just looking at our website. They will all be known by a pseudonym. You might want to talk with your student, and choose a pseudonym together.

Audience: Students will be able to write, and have an audience much bigger than the teacher’s files. The audience is literally the world! If people all over the world care to explore and find our web page, they can read what we have written online! You may have relatives that might be interested in reading (and commenting on!) your student’s writing. This can be an incredibly powerful motivation to write higher quality work.

What will they write?: It has been proven that those that write more, and more often, become better writers. Students will be required to post blog entries sometimes, but will be allowed to post more entries as often as they wish. Some ideas of things that students might write about are: description of an important or interesting experience, description of a favorite topic, a book review, a story, or any of our more formal classroom writing assignments (like Persuasive Essays, Responses to Literature, Personal Narratives, and Reports).

If you have any further questions or concerns about any of this, I would be glad to talk with you. Let me know on your student’s agenda, or call or email me.
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If you are begining the adventure of blogging in your classroom, I hope this is helpful for you as you communicate with all the players involved.