Teachers from kindergarten through high school headed to Technology Services Monday afternoon to learn more about QuadBlogging and the Student Blogging Challenge, two exciting opportunities to build on students’ writing skills as well as their digital/global citizenship skills (protecting online privacy, crediting sources, online ettiquette and digital footprint).
QuadBlogging, created by United Kingdom educator David Mitchell, is a powerful, yet simple way to connect students to an authentic audience. The way QuadBlogging works is a group (a “quad”) of four teachers agree to have their students comment on each other’s blogs in an organized fashion. Quads can be comprised of classrooms across the state, nation or world. Each week, one of the four gets a turn to be the spotlight class. The other three classes visit and leave comments. Over the course of a month, every student’s work is viewed and commented on. Along the way, students learn about respectful, effective online communication, an essential skill in the age of Common Core Standards.
Similar to QuadBlogging, the Student Blogging Challenge is a free and open international collaborative project that runs for 10 weeks, twice each year (September – December and March – June) and challenges students to complete 10 activities. The Challenge is open to both class blogs and to individual student bloggers from all over the world and of all ages. Although supported by Edublogs, classroom or student blogs don’t need to be hosted by Edublogs to participate.
The main difference between the Student Blogging Challenge and QuadBlogging is the flexible schedule of the Challenge. Participating bloggers may complete as many of the tasks as they wish and in any order. The Challenge is a wonderful way for students – and teachers – to increase their technology skills as well as to connect to an authentic audience.
Workshop participants enthusiastically discussed the benefits of both programs. “Fifteen minutes into the workshop, I had already registered my classroom blog on the QuadBlogging site,” said an elementary teacher worskshop participant. “I’m looking forward to sharing these two exciting cross-curricular options with teachers at my site,” said a secondary librarian.
If you were not able to attend the Monday afternoon session on QuadBlogging and the Student Blogging Challenge, you still have time to register for both global events by visiting the QuadBlogging and Student Blogging Challenge websites. But hurry… September is just around the corner.
Interested in learning more about blogs and blogging? Our Professional Development workshops are listed under the Educators drop-down navigation menu on this digital citizenship website. Workshops are available to EGUSD employees only.
