The reaction I got when I told students that we were going to be setting up our own individual blogs over the next few weeks was fantastic! There was instantly excitement spreading through the room and chatter about what they had seen with blogging already outside of school. I asked for a raise of hands of students who had blogged before and about 4 hands went up. All were new students to the school this year. After questioning those students about their background connection with blogging it became evident that they had indeed ‘posted’ on ‘class blog sites’ before, yet actually creating their own blog was a new adventure for all of them. Great!

I asked the students 2 questions to begin the discussion:

What is blogging?

How do you think that blogging can benefit us in year 6?

Student Comments – What is Blogging

One of the students said that blogging allowed for opportunities to give ‘feedback’ to others about their work and ideas. So this led to the addition of another question for the discussion:

Why is giving feedback a good idea?

The student responses were recorded and will be the initial data for showcasing what my students initially know about blogging.

We then watched a short film on blogging.

I intend to ask the students the same questions towards the end of this year and see how their responses have changed and get them to provide examples of where they have actually demonstrated performing an action for each of the purposes of blogging and also, reflect on how it has benefited them in year 6 throughout the year. My ongoing data collection will be direct observation of students using their blogs, the questions they ask, how they problem solve when blogging, the discussions around blogging and their actual blogs.

What data are you collecting from your students about blogging for your research project?