Quad Blogging

Our class has begun an exciting project called Quad Blogging! To gear up for creating our own student blogs this school year we are trying something new -- the Quad Blog. Quad Blogging is a great project that connects classrooms and students around the world via blogs so that we can see what others are doing and practice posting and commenting. This summer my friend Mrs. Pariseau (a first grade teacher in Essex) and I signed up for a "Quad Blog" together, and we were grouped with two other first grade classrooms (to make our quad), one in England, and one in Wales! For three months (October, November, December) the four of our classes will take turns reading each other's classroom blog posts and leaving comments. This will both help us to learn more about students our age in other parts of the world and will help us learn how to write blog posts, comment on other's blog posts, and reply to comments left for us! Our four classes will rotate being the "spotlight" class for the week, meaning that during our week "in the spotlight" we will focus on posting new photos and information while the other three classes read and comment on our posts. On weeks when we are not the spotlight class we will focus on reading posts written by the class who is "in the spotlight" and leaving quality comments for them! Below are the blog web addresses for the other three classes in our quad, if you would like to have a look!

Mrs. Pariseau's class, Essex VT

Mrs. Darling's class, England UK

Mrs. Thomas' class, Wales UK

After we get under way with Quad Blogging Mrs. Pariseau and I have the goal of having our students become blog pen pals (once the students have learned to post, comment, and have set up their own Kid Blogs)! Students in my class last year blogged each week as a kind of online journaling (to practice writing skills but also 21st Century technology skills) and they loved it! This year Mrs. P and I plan to add the element of having our students blog with specific first grade pen pals to give our students. This will give our students a specific and regular audience to have in mind when posting and a regular partner to practice commenting with. Mrs. P and I are hoping that this will make blogging this year even more fun and dynamic than in the past!

Stay tuned for more information on our Quad Blogging, Kid blogs, and blogging with pen pals.