EdtecComet

Analysis

• My users will be third and fourth grade students (ages 8 – 11). Since I will also be the technology teacher, my class size will vary between 20 and 30 students. Approximately 80% are English language learners.
• I am hoping that this Book Blog will replace the traditional book report. I would like my students to be able to post responses to books they have read either individually or in groups. They should also be able to respond to at least three other posts in a one month period.
• I have seen a few sites on some teacher’s webpages that have had book blogs. They were just book reviews by students with comments by other students.
• Some performance drivers that might affect their learning would be:
  • Their writing level and knowledge of how to write a book review.
  • Early on in the year, many third graders are unfamiliar with using word processing tools, so getting them to type in text may be a challenge.
  • Learning how to log on to the blog.
  • Learning how to respond to another person’s blog.

  Design

I want my users to be able to

• Write complete sentences and discuss the basic theme of a book or main idea of nonfiction text.
• Give their opinion of the books citing characters or events to back up their statements.
• Read each other’s posts and respond to them as well.

Development

I plan on using EduBlogs for my site, therefore I will need to

• Set up a separate Edublog site with tabs for a home page, personal blog, and a book blog.
• Set up usernames for the Edublog site using gmail addresses to represent the students (ex: nhe522#1@gmail.com for student #1).
• The Edublog site should have a sidebar that lists recent submissions.
• Introduce the site to my students using a personal blog, and an assignment for them to respond.  This will entail modeling how to log on, how to read and respond, and how to publish their comments.
• The first book blog will be about a book that I read aloud.  We will write notes together about the theme, our opinions, and evidence to support our claims.  We will create a rubric of what should be included in the blog.  Then each student will add to the blog.
• The final step will be for the students to add to the book blog about a book that they read on their own.
• The personal blog will be constantly added to as the year goes on.