Paper Blogging Practice

This really is a 2.0 exercise, although it takes place on paper! Students get the ideas that they should have an online persona that is positive, that blogs are not diaries, and learn about the mechanics of blogging and commenting while having a colorful paper display in the school. It can be extended to a lesson about trolls and cyberbullies.

I have blogged about this experience and put a picture on my page. I have also added a lesson plan to the classroom2dot0 wiki. (The wiki link isn't working, so here's a link to things tagged paper-blog on my blog, including the lesson plan and a cool picture!)

Tags: blogging, blogs, paper blogs, safety

0 members like this

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Connie Weber on April 30, 2007 at 10:01am

Hi Sue,
I love this exercise! How wonderfully constructive! Your blog is awesome. Thanks for all your sharing. I'm going to try your Paper Blogging Practice.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by SusanTsairi on May 2, 2007 at 2:24pm

This reminds me of one of those times when our server was down. My students were very dissapointed that they had to work in the regular classroom and some were noisily demanding a free lesson instead. I handed each student a piece of paper and told them they were going to participate in a forum discussion. I asked them to write on the top of the page their suggestions for activities that could be held when the server is down. When they finished writing they had to pass their page to the child behind them who had to comment on their suggestion etc etc. It worked well, they seemed to enjoy it and at the end of the lesson we had a collection of ideas that could be used should the occasion arise again.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Sue R. on May 2, 2007 at 4:51pm

Susan, I think this might be a great discussion topic! "What do you pull out of your hat when the technology fails?"

I wil be keeping your forum exercise in my "bag of tricks." I have a tech studio with 13 computers (no server, except for the switch that divvies up our internet access) but I have experienced internet failure (switch to lessons involving tech that doesn't need it, or switch to using video and other materials downloaded already). I have also just recently experienced local program failure (I had the properly licensed program loaded on all of our computers, and it worked fine the week before. When I came to asking all the students to start it up--it gave an error message! (Coffee cup software's web page development software--anyone have any ideas? Did a windows auto update mess with it? Dunno.).

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Angeles Berman on July 2, 2007 at 6:12pm

WOW!!! What a good idea!!
I'm always having problems because of the lack of computers at school and about my students don't know how to use them.
This activity counld be an excellente intro to what blogs are and waht can a student do in a blog, and i a safe way!!!
I can't wait to use it with my students next school year .
Unfortunately, teh school is over this week :-( so I'm going to tell you the results next september.
Congratulations for your excellente blog and thanks for sharing

angelesb

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Sue R. on July 2, 2007 at 7:25pm

Angeles, I look forward to your letting me know how it goes! It was a really cool exercise.

Here's a brief description of one other, "practice on paper" lesson I did with my students. It might work for your age group...
It was a game to help children practice safe-chat behaviors. The basic concept was to teach my students to choose “avoiding,” “evading,” “confronting,” “distracting,” "enlisting," or “reporting,” and to practice as many possible responses to scripts of “friendly chat.” We did it as small group work, and I gave each team a group of cards labelled “avoid” “evade” etc. and scripts that represented the beginning of conversations. They were to decide which response cards would work in the situation, and then write as many responses as they might use (I gave them several minutes for that). After, we read responses and gave out points for things like the “most kind” and “goofiest” and “most prolific” teams.

(We first practiced identifying each of the response types before we began the game, by having them try and label some entertaining and extreme examples.)
(In case it wasn't clear, "enlist" means to enlist the other person in the cause of safe chatting and explaining why they shouldn't ask for personal information, etc.)

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by ruthokoye on September 1, 2007 at 9:34am

I am really interested in this... I tried the link to the lesson plan, but it didn't work. Can anyone get me the right link?

Ruth

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Sue R. on September 1, 2007 at 1:27pm

Ruth,
I don't know what happened to the classroom 2dot0 wiki that it was on. Thanks for letting me know, I've put the lesson plan up on my own blog, just to know it will stay there. Here's a link that WILL work: to the lesson plan http://bookwyrmish.edublogs.org/2007/09/01/paper-blog-lp/
It was really great fun.
Sue

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Kevin H. on September 2, 2007 at 5:04am

Thanks so much for sharing.
I may use this with my sixth graders but also as part of some training with teachers in places where there are no computers. (And give you full credit, of course).
Is that OK?
Take care,
Kevin

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Sue R. on September 2, 2007 at 5:54am

It's super. I'm happy to know it's useful. I think it's really a great way to bridge the "digital divide" when there aren't computers around, too. Take pictures!
~Sue

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Adam Dugger on September 9, 2007 at 12:47pm

This sounds great! I am going to look into using this to introduce blogging to my students this week. If I do use it, I will surely post how it goes!

Thanks Sue!

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Adam Dugger on September 12, 2007 at 3:16pm

All I can say is "THANKS!" My library media specialist and I did this today for both my class and for another fourth grade class. It really did work well! The kids understood the difference between a blog and a journal. We also spoke about accountability and constructive criticism. I did it almost exactly as written with a few impromptu additions. I will be using this to introduce blogging again next year!

Thanks again
Adam

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Dana Cherrie on March 29, 2012 at 2:26am

Thank you Sue for sharing this. I am excited to try it with my third graders and I especially look forward to the application of "once it is posted on the internet it is posted" and you can't take it back. But I love the idea of practicing it on paper so they can understand it! Would LOVE to use this as a launch into my cyber safety unit and perhaps end with a class book to share in the library on internet safety! Thank you for being the catalyst! :D