Blogging Community
The fifth graders have been working on updating and adding to their blogs lately. We also talked about and practiced how to make positive & productive comments, practicing on paper by using sticky notes that attached to the poems we have posted in the hallway before practicing online. A few kids needed reminders on what constituted a “polite & productive” comment (“That looks wierd,” or “Are you getting these comments?”), but I think we’ve got a good handle on it now. 
SO, we are excited now to get to participate in a blogging community (mini-neighborhoods) with some other 5th graders near Des Moines. These new friends will be a REAL audience for our writing and we’ll get a chance to read and comment on what other fifth graders are writing. We’re using a Google doc to get it all set up, and maybe we’ll get a chance to SKYPE with the class before we start reading & commenting on each other’s blogs. Who knows? Maybe we’ll even add other classes once we get this rolling along. Ultimately though this is about getting and giving real feedback from a real audience and making connections with new friends.
I think the possibilities for this are beyond reading and responding to a few blog entries. I can’t wait to see where it goes!
Have you ever purposefully participated in a blogging community? What other long-distance activities have you done with other classes?
What do you think of this project?
