OK, so since last week a lot has happened. First, my students absolutely adore the class blog! They are always so eager to finish their morning work and get on the blog to see what I have put up for them to do. This week, I have used the blog each day. The first day posed difficulties because they struggled even logging into the site. However, each day they got better and better. I would definitely suggest using the blog daily at first to smooth out as many kinks as possible.

Each post asked slightly more of my students. The first post was just about what they thought of the blog, then about a friend in the class, they took a poll on a math questions, and finally today they took a quiz on the blog. They bombed the quiz. I was really disappointed. I was unsure if this was due to the content of the quiz, or by the act of taking a quiz online. After asking the students about the questions and going over the answers with them, we call came to the same conclusion. It was the fact that they had never taken a quiz on the blog before. They weren't sure how it worked, they didn't know if everyone would see their score, etc. I never explained it to them! Yikes! So, reader, learn from my mistake, explain the process of taking a quiz on a blog to your students. Yes, they CAN use scratch paper to solve the problem, they do NOT need to solve a difficult division problem in their head. Oi!

I have had a lot of positive experiences though. Each student got to choose an Avatar to use as their profile picture. This way they do not have a picture of them floating around on the Internet. We went over guidelines of having a blog. Yes, complete sentences and punctation were required. They cannot use this blog as a Facebook account, etc. After going over the guidelines, we all signed it and I have posted it in the classroom so remind us all of our agreement.

The students have been talking about the blog to each other at lunch, to other students, and even mentioned it to a few teachers. I have also been sharing this journey with the other members of the third grade team. Two of them seem eager to start a blog of their own. They were impressed with the options the blog had. One of them was in the mindset that a blog was just something to vent on, somewhat like a journal. I explained some of my ideas, and she was floored!

In the next coming weeks, I plan to make sub groups on the blog and have literature circle discussions on the blog. I am hoping this works well and helps my students work independently while creating their response, but collaboratively working together via discussion.

As always, please comment and ask any questions! I love feedback!