Finding authentic audiences for students' blogs?

My 7th grade Language Arts students are blogging and we'd like to connect with other students to share our writing. Specifically, we are about to post reviews of short stories the students read and I'm trying to figure out how to get the reviews out there and read (i.e., become useful) to other students and readers. Do you have suggestions?

Tags: blogs, short stories

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Permalink Reply by Rick Biche on October 29, 2007 at 6:07pm

Amanda,
We have some 8th graders who love to comment. Commenting on other students work would be a great new twist for them. You can read some of their work at http://team4kms.com/biche and http://team4kms.com/anderson. You can contact me here at classroom 2.0 or though the comment I left on your blog.
Hope this helps.
Rick Biche

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Permalink Reply by jomcleay on October 30, 2007 at 12:20am

Hi Rick, I went to check your blogs but I couldn't find any students that I could comment on. Do your students have blogs? If you want to see my students' blogs have a look at http://mrsmac2022.learnerblogs.org/ The students are listed off to the side on the blogroll. Some have done more writing than others, as you would expect. btw we are in Melbourne Australia. Thank you for adding your blogs.

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Permalink Reply by Rick Biche on October 30, 2007 at 3:07am

Hi jomcleay,
No, my students do not have blogs yet but it that is a short matter of time and a little instruction. We have gone through and set up 4 class blogs on Learnerblogs, all the students have user names as of a couple days ago so today we may roll them into class blogs. Then hopefully by next week we can have kids writing blogs. What you saw was just their commenting at this point.
I think, ok, I know my kids would love to have the chance to connect with some others for writing and commenting so I will check out your kids blogs and let you know when ours are up and running.

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Permalink Reply by jomcleay on October 30, 2007 at 12:07am

Hi Amanda,
Found this on twitter (via Russel). Anyway, if you send me the link to your year 7 students I will definitely show them to my class. And the you can do the same. My Year 7s are blogging on http://mrsmac2022.learnerblogs.org. If the students put in the URL of their blog when they add a comment my class can easily get back to them. (Sorry if you already know that). Anyway looking forward to some more interaction and stay in touch. My students will be in the computer lab on Friday (2 days from now). And thanks for commenting on my page as well
Thanks for putting this out there Amanda and Russel

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Permalink Reply by Chris Davison on October 30, 2007 at 3:44am

Hi Amanda, Have you thought about using a Virtual Classroom? This would enable you to connect with other schools online across any geography. You can share the 'classroom' with other classes, or even other schools - which may suit your requirements. Communication can be verbal (via headsets) or through text messaging. You can share PPT, or Word files, which may be a really easy way for your students to share their ideas with others. This type of synchronous learning can have profound effects on students sharing work and peer learning. I have written a blog on how this technology can be used to collaborate http://taecanet.blogspot.com/2006/10/groundbreaking-day-at-ase.html . Please let me know if you would like more details.

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Permalink Reply by Ed Jones on October 30, 2007 at 8:28am

What a great title and concern!!!

No doubt the audiences of other students will win out. However, have you considered looking somewhere like here:
retired.teachers.net/?