A question that often comes up in my workshops about blogging is, “what should I have my students write about?” There are dozens, perhaps hundreds, of possible answers to this question. The suggestion that I often make is to start with a simple reflection activity.
Set aside time in your Friday schedule to have your students sit down and write a short reflection on what they learned during the week. These reflections don’t have to be long, a few sentences will do in elementary school. Simply ask your students to share one thing they learned and one thing they still have questions about. To extend the activity have each student comment on at least one other student’s post. Students’ comments could be the answer to a question or a simple “thanks for reminding me about that.” The point is to get students in the habit of reflecting on what they learned. You should do the same.
Your students’ reflections don’t even need to be written to be included in your classroom blog. Flipgrid makes it easy to have students record video reflections that you can then embed into your blog. A video guide to using Flipgrid can be found here.
Learn more about classroom blogging in my on-demand webinar, How to Create a Great Classroom Blog.