The day had arrived where I got my students to post their very first blog. Their faces quickly went from excited to scared and for a second I thought that perhaps I had affected them a little with our discussions about ‘everything you post online is permanent’ and that they ‘leave a digital footprint’ …

After receiving many questions about how many people can see access their blogs, I lightened their anxiety about posting online by changing the setting on their blogs to private; meaning that only them and I could access their blogs at this stage with the set up being that I would have to approve all posts before they were able to publish. The students were very responsive to this making me realise that they are actually quite concerned about ‘putting themselves and their work out there for others to see and judge’. This got me thinking about confidence in sharing and how I was going to get around this issue in the classroom.

We revised our discussion about the purposes for blogging; sharing, giving feedback, connecting with others and inspiring others and spoke again about having an awareness of audience in the voice that you use when constructing posts.

I told the students that they were to write their first post about their learnings about their Maths Animation Project, a film project that involved them making a stop motion animation to present the properties of a 3D shape and its net, and post a copy of their finished product.

After viewing their maths posts, I sense that they have a general knowledge of writing blogs for an audience, perhaps a credit to our Writer’s Workshop Program at school, with a focus on writing purposefully for an audience. However, I feel that there is still room for improvement in the quality of their posting; writing shorter amounts to convey their message more efficiently.

What is your feedback on the quality of my students posts?