I am so excited to incorporate writing in my math class during the new semester. My goal is to have students use blogging as an instructional tool to write and express their mathematical ideas. I hope to provide them with an opportunity to reflect on their understanding of mathematics.

Blogging and technology are two tools that go hand-hand. Blogging makes integrating technology in the classroom easy. I researched and wanted to find the easiest blogging site for me to use with my students.

I found Kid Blogs.

Kids Blogs provided me with the opportunity to create one room and add each student to the room. To easily access student’s account as needed, I created the username and password for each student. There was no downloading or checking your email to activate the account. It was a perfect solution for my goal.

Now that I had the site, I needed to decide how I would effectively use blogging in my class. Blogs can be used as a classroom blog where I post assignments, classroom updates, and more. I could also use blogs as digital journals, exit slips, or a digital portfolio. Since my goal was to integrate writing to express mathematical ideas, I decided to use our blog as a digital journal.

Students will be required to write a blog entry on topics, questions, and problems assigned by me. They will be required to share their understanding of a topic, provide a response to a question, or solution to a problem. To allow students to reflect on their understanding and learning, topics, questions, and problems will be assigned to each student at the end of each class. Students will post their blog entry at the beginning of the next class meeting. To reflect on their peers understanding and learning, each student will be required to effectively respond to at least 2 of their peer posts.Since blogs are stamped with the date and time, I can easily assess students understanding and provide feedback.

Using blogging as a digital journal, students will be able to reflect on their overall progress in the understanding and communicating of mathematics. Student’s use of blogging will provide them with the opportunity to improve their writing and reading comprehension skills. Most importantly blogging will allow me to promote a positive engaging learning environment for my students.

My students have already experienced microblogging through Twitter and Today’s Meet, so this should be a great experience for them. We will still microblog for our warm-ups, exit slips, and collaboration.

Visit me at Fun Integrating Technology for ideas, rubrics from Mr. Kerlin’s Math World, projects, and writing prompts.