Want to blog? Rialto teachers and administrators can use an eChalk blog to communicate with students, parents, and colleagues. (FYI, eChalk does provide student blogs, but this function is currently de-activated in Rialto.)
What is a blog?
The webster definition is that its an online personal journal. However, blogging has moved beyond this to become a tool for sharing information and ideas and receiving feedback from others. A blog is significantly different from a discussion board in that a blog has one author who creates "posts" containing information and points of view and all other participants respond with comments to this author. A discussion board has multiple authors and all participants can reply to each other. View my online notes and conversation comparing blogs and discussion boards.
Why use a blog?
For Administrators: Post meeting minutes, share school success stories, and much more! Blogs provide an easy way to share this type of information. And, all the content is fully searchable! You and your staff won't waste time searching old documents for information you previously discussed - a quick search of your blog will provide the information instantly!
For Teachers: The short answer is that it provides another medium to encourage writing, reading, critical thinking, and reflection. It provides a valuable audience for students - they tend to be much more self-critical of their work when sharing with peers and the world, rather than just their teacher. Check out the following resources for more ideas about how blogging can be beneficial to student learning.
- Check out this simple video from one class who blogs.
- Read how blogging can improve thinking in Brain of a Blogger.
- Read this article about elementary blogging. Skip the part about sites that provide blogging - you've got that through eChalk!
Since blogging is new to Rialto, we aren't allowing students to have their own blogs just yet. But you can use your blog and let students contribute to it using the comment feature. Secondary students can also send you an email using their eChalk account; you would then copy their message and paste it as a post to your blog. Remember to give them credit, but for privacy reasons, only use their first name unless you have parent permission to use their full name.
How to Organize a Blog:
In eChalk, you can only have one blog. However, this can be a good thing - it keeps all your information in one location. To organize that information, use categories and then link your audiences to the appropriate category. For example, on my blog, I have a category for the
Ed Tech Committee, another category for the teachers in the
eSTELLAR grant, and another just for fun
Tech Tidbits I like to share with anyone. On the eChalk pages for these various groups, I link them to the specific category that relates to them - the
Ed Tech Committee webpage has a link to the Ed Tech Committee category in my blog.
For classroom teachers, an even easier way to present the various categories in your blog is to create a homepage for your blog and post the links to the categories, so that students visiting your blog have to choose the direction they want to go first.
Sample Blog Homepage for an English Teacher: Here's a brief example of how a teacher might use a blog homepage to present the various categories of her blog. Each of the links could take students to a different category of postings.
Welcome to Ms. Doe's Class Blog! Poetry: read poetry submitted by our class and submit your own! Book Reviews: check out our favorite books and authors Persuasive Musings: Can we convince you? Read our persuasive writing and let us know if we've changed your mind or made you think of something differently. |
This teacher could also have categories in her blog that are not listed on this homepage - such as "English Department Minutes." Of course, she would then provide her English Department a link directly to this category of her blog. And she would need to be aware that her students and their parents could still access this part of her blog if they chose to, by clicking the "English Department Minutes" category in the sidebar of her blog. You cannot designate parts of your blog to be private to certain audiences like you can on your class page.
Cautions and Considerations
- Your blog and everything you create on your blog is either public or private - it's an all or nothing deal. So if you set your blog to public, everything you post is public. Anyone who can access any one part of your blog can access all other parts of your blog through the navigation in the sidebar.
- Keep it professional. Your eChalk blog is not the place to share your frustrations. Use it to teach, inspire, communicate, and collaborate.
- Avoid posting personal information about you or your students, whether the blog is public or private. You should always model safe online behavior for your students. And even on a private blog, it's too easy for someone to copy-paste what was shared onto a public webpage somewhere.
- Model citation of sources. It doesn't have to be MLA format, but it needs to be there or you are violating copyright and our district Acceptable Use Policy!
- If you use information from a website, link to it.
- If you include a picture in your blog be sure to get permission and state "Used with permission from..."
- The ability to comment is what makes a blog interactive. So by all means, take advantage of this by enabling comments. HOWEVER, you should also be sure to use the blog settings to help you monitor the comments that are submitted. Go to the settings page of your blog and choose one or both of these:
- Email me when comments are submitted: I would strongly suggest you turn on this feature so you are always notified when new information is posted on your blog.
- Moderate comments: This setting requires you to view the comments and then approve them before they are made available for everyone else to see. Depending on the people visiting your blog, you may or may not need this.
- Posting a comment requires a visitor to submit a display name and email. However, the email is not shown on the page. So if your students are submitting comments, you can assign them display names and they can use their eChalk email account. In the case of elementary students who do not have an eChalk email account, they can use your email account.
Start Blogging!
- Login to your eChalk account.
- Click My Account in the left sidebar.
- Click Blogs in the left sidebar.
Access a handout on how to use your eChalk blog by clicking the Support Center link at the top of your eChalk account and choosing the Getting Started tab.
