Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Using a Blog in the Kindergarten Classroom

To incorporate a blog in my kindergarten classroom I would extend a science unit about space. As the students explore the planets I would have "Astronaut Alex" share information and pose questions for the students to explore. This interaction would help to motivate and encourage student learning about space. During a lesson I would assist the class in generating comments and questions by typing them into a blog. In reality I would secretly pretend to be "Astronaut Alex" and respond to the class while generating excitement about the planets. Student learning would be seen through the use of the blogs because their comments and questions would exhibit their understanding. This experience would be a good tool because it would encourage the kindergarten students to connect to the global world.
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4 comments:

  1. Sean, Megan, Addie & Emma HarrellNovember 13, 2009 at 8:55 AM

    Kelly -

    Astronaut Alex sounds like a cute idea! Would you consider this type of blogging more helpful for you or the students? Would the students actually be blogging or would you be using a blog to store their questions and comments?

    I have found, teaching RR in first grade.... that blogging is more benificial to me and my parents, than my students.Blogging will be very helpful to having a place to publish the course curriculum, syllabus, class rules, homework assignments, rubrics, handouts and presentations for parents.

    Thanks for the cute idea!
    Megan

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  2. sciteach79November 13, 2009 at 5:15 PM

    Kelly,

    Love the Astronaut Alex idea. I'm just curious though about the language level of your kindergarteners when it comes to writing and typing. I remember looking back at my school portfolio and my kindergarten writings were actually written by my teacher transcribing what I said. It does sound like you are planning on typing in their questions and comments for them, would this be as a whole group, or individually? I'm also wondering how much written responses would hold the attention of students at that level, do you have a way of hooking up the Astronaut Alex responses to a voice reader?

    Laura R.

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  3. KellyNovember 14, 2009 at 9:50 AM

    Yes, I do agree that much of Kindergarten writing at this early in the eary is done by the teacher taking dicatations from the students. I would hope to have some writing lessons that support the students on forming questions so that they can do some of the asking by the time this unit begins. My thoughts were that if I had the students write some of the the questions, I could have them take turns reading them to me during whole group while I typed them in.
    What a great addition to my idea- adding a voice reader would be a big success. I am very thankful for your thoughts.
    Kelly M.

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  4. KellyNovember 14, 2009 at 10:09 AM

    I believe that the students would be benefiting from this sort of bloggin as well as myself. They would be gainingn a lot of information about asking questions and with the use of the voice recorder they would hear fluent reading. I think the additikon of the voice recorder would allow them to be even more involved with blogging.

    I do see your point about the usefulness of the blog to parents and teachers. I agree that posting things about homework and things would be an additional way to use the blog.
    Thanks for your comment.
    Kelly M.

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