Student+Blogs+as+Learning+Logs


 * Brief description of Learning Circle Plan**
 * In middle school social studies we work to cover so much content area that there is usually not enough time for students to reflect on their learning. As a result some students struggle with the class and don’t see the big picture or connect U.S. history with their present world because they are struggling with details or difficult concepts. Also some students aren’t transferring learning strategies from other classes to this course.**


 * Why Learning Logs?**
 * Traditionally, learning logs have been helpful in allowing students to articulate what they did well and what they didn’t do well //(or// what they understood or did not). By having students write their learning logs in blog from, our hope is that they’ll be more engaged than in paper & pencil logs because they can post their thoughts online and also read their classmates’ blogs as well as comment on them. Additionally because many are already familiar with using social media, the technical training in class will not take very long.**
 * Resources Needed**
 * Laptop computers & some tech support from our building's IT person
 * edmodo website

We will measure our effectiveness by blogs produced by our students in response to our writing prompts. We'll grade according to accuracy of answers and correct usage of academic language and vocabulary terms.
 * Plan to measure results****:**


 * We’ll** **use blogs as pre & post assessments (similar to ‘Exit Slips’ at the end of class).**

Timeline: sufficient laptops necessary to have students sign up for blog site. || Implement blog use to kick off our WW ll unit. Resolve initial tech issues & problems.Have students blog weekly or bi-weekly on topics in U.S History.Teachers will reply to blogs and start to assign points in grade book for students’ blogs. We will check blogs weekly. Students can also earn badges at the Edmodo website and can comment ( appropriately ) to others posts. || Continue weekly or bi-weekly blogs. Schedule may have to be changed to facilitate MCA testing. As students become more familiar with the technical side of logging on and blogging, we'll focus more on the content and using academic vocabulary. If needed we may discuss with students appropriate & helpful ways to comment on a post. || Reply to blogs posts and complete last student blog entry. Meet as a team to discuss pros & cons and see what we want/need to change for next year. Plan for tech changes for next year, if needed. ||
 * March || April || May || June ||
 * ELL Teacher to Determine subject area & class period to have blog Get technical support &

Work & Progress:
Upload: documents, photos, links, etc... April Planning took awhile, and had to do some practice runs of the first blog to work out kinks with site and with our laptops. EDMODO site works well & seems easier to use tna others, bpuls it's very transparent & basic. Coordinated laptop cart with our building tech person and made sure that we kept our 1st hour history class on schedule so we could ask our WWll questions. The first blog is: What were 2 or more causes of WW 2? Also, do you think the war could have been avoided? If so, how?

April 13 Some issues with spelling and mechanics, but it went well. There were also some issues with students needing help to log in and so not having sufficient time to get their posts done and also a student typed up her blog but didn't actually post it so her writing was lost. Also there were some absences so we’ll need to go over procedures for logging in creating accounts next week too.

Content & ideas were excellent and facts cited were accurate. Students were excited and Ms. Anderson & I both noted that the great majority of students were on-task during the entire activity. We were discussing causes of WWll.

April 27 Second blog: Students were able to log in more quickly and so were able to get more writing done in their blogs. The class really had fun with the posts. My main job was facilitating the technical side and also clarifying some minor point of today’s topic (why was manufacturing so important in the Second World War) & helping with spelling of various terms. One students

May11 Blog THREE: Today’s topic – did you feel ready for this week’s test on WWll. Explain why or why not. What could you have done to improve your understanding

Some very candid responses & students were able to reflect on how they could've improved their learning & gained a deeper understanding - most said to study more with homework or ask more questions in class. A sample response: **//" i did not feel ready for the world war 2 test because i did not know some of the questions. something that helped me prepare for the war was having my notes .something i// would do different would be study more for the test"** another student wrote:


 * i felt ready when i did the test because i had a lot of notes. what helped me prepare for the test was that i had a lot of notes and the movies we watched. what i would do differently next time is to do better on the test.** This blog helped Ms. Anderson & I come up with more ideas to help our students, especially the lower performers. There were some studetns who lost their passwords so I looked up their info and helped them log in. We still had one student who did not have an I.D. or password with EDMODO because he has missed a few classes and so we had him write his answer on paper. Another took so long to get logged in that he only answered part of the question. We're trying to think of solutions to these issues.

May 18 we had a blog about the Cuban missile crisis, more students are completing the blog questions in their entirety today - good news. Here are a couple of sample posts:


 * The u.s & soviet union fought Cuba plus the U.S i think...**
 * The Cuban missile crisis was the soviet union put out an missile towards the united state which would a cause a nuclear war.**
 * If i was pres. Kennedy i would have done the same to, not exactly the same but surely no one would have gotten hurt.**


 * Rayah**
 * 1:Cuba U.s. And The Soviet Union**
 * 2:Cuba And Russia Had missles And JFK Said Don"t Launch Those So They Agreed**
 * 3:I Whouldve Had Stoped It Too Because People Chouldve Died And Many chouldve Got Hurt**
 * MR. S Yes, this is what we learned yesterday and I agree that people could've died. JFK was very worried about this and, as we discussed, many Americans were afraid it could have led to war. Do you recall which state Cuba is very close to? **
 * MR. S Yes, this is what we learned yesterday and I agree that people could've died. JFK was very worried about this and, as we discussed, many Americans were afraid it could have led to war. Do you recall which state Cuba is very close to? **

Spelling errors still abound, we may do one or two FCAs when we assign the next blog, but we are mostly concerned about the content and getting the gist of the history. Students are taking the blogs seriously however as we've been grading them since the 2nd blog ( the first one we didn't grade because it took some students longer to get logged on and there were some technical problems).