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I am relatively new to the world of Primary education and am looking for a way to engage my students in writing in a way that gets them excited about sharing their ideas.  I have just finished in a grade 1/2 class where students journaled every day and noticed that the posts they were most engaged in were the ones that had meaning to them and sparked something in them.  It was amazing to see the difference in the quality of their writing when a journal topic was highly relevant to them.  I am looking to set the conditions so that more of their writing has that "spark" for next year's students.

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What is the impact of an authentic audience to student learning in the primary grades?

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Quad-blogging with Grade 6 students increased the higher ability writing group from 9 to 60 percent on British achievement tests.

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State of Now #140conf NYC 2012: David Mitchell, "QuadBlogging - linking learning to global audience"

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David Mitchell (@DeputyMitchell) - Deputy Headteacher and Founder of Quadblogging

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If I provide students with a global, authentic audience for their writing, then their writing will improve. I will see this result in increased engagement and motivation to write.

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Kathy uses her student blogs as a digital portfolio of their work throughout the year.  Students blog their ideas using a variety of media, including photographs, videos, audio clips, drawings and typed text.  She also advocates authentic audiences in the form of Skype partnerships, Twitter, and blogs.

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Literature Review - Connections to 21st Century Competencies

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Literature Review - Connections to 21st Century Competencies

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Through QuadBlogging, I will be able to address the following 21st Century Competencies:

Collaboration:
* Learns from, and contributes to,
the learning of others
* Co-constructs knowledge, meaning,
and content
* Assumes various roles on the team
* Networks with a variety of
communities/groups
* Respects a diversity of perspectives

Communication:
* Communicates effectively in
different contexts in oral and written
form
* Asks effective questions to acquire
knowledge
* Communicates using a variety of
media
* Selects appropriate digital tools
according to purpose
* Listens to understand all points of
view
* Voices opinions and advocates
for ideas

Global Citizenship
* Contributes to society and the
culture of the local, global, and
digital community in a responsible,
accountable, and ethical
manner
* Learns from and with diverse
people
* Interacts safely and responsibly
within a variety of communities
* Creates a positive digital footprint

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* I have signed up for QuadBlogging and will be paired with 3 other schools across the world.  Once every 4 weeks, my class will be the "focus" class and will share our posts using our class blog.
* During the other 3 weeks, we will be commenting on the other class blogs.

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Student writing will improve with a strong audience and sense of purpose.  Corbett considers QuadBlogging to be one of the most powerful educational initiatives in the last 25 years.

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Pie Corbett describes the impact of Quadblogging

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After reviewing the literature, I have chosen QuadBlogging using KidBlog with a global audience as my technology for this project.  I chose KidBlog because it is easy to integrate the Google Suite into and our board technology is Google-based. I am operating on the assumption that this will work regardless of the technology I have available, as I don't yet know what class I'll have. Blogging will work with just a few desktop computers, as reported by Kathy Cassidy and Brenda Sherry. I have also chosen the Teddy Bear Project as a supplement to class blogging. The Teddy Bear Project will give my class material to blog about and another Global opportunity.

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http://novemberlearning.com/educational-resources-for-educators/teaching-and-learning-articles/write-teacher-publish-world/
"Stop saying hand it in - start saying publish it" - should students continue writing only for their teachers or will they be more engaged if they have a more meaningful audience?
Students value authenticity and purpose in their classwork.

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https://bsherry.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/teddy-bears-go-blogging.pdf
Students blogged about their work from a global project (the Teddy Bear Project) and were highly motivated to continue their work because of the positive audience response.

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Literature Review - Silvia Rosenthal-Tolisano

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Literature Review - Silvia Rosenthal-Tolisano

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http://langwitches.org/blog/2012/07/02/quad-blogging-reflection/
QuadBlogging in four countries improved student writing through engagement, motivation, and global connections.

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An International team of four classrooms partnered to do action research. They asked the questions: Does Blogging support and improve QUALITY student writing? Support their efforts and visit their classroom blogs (with student blog links) and model quality comments for them.

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I will implement KidBlog in the following ways:
* Students will be journaling every morning using paper and pencil.  I will determine a rotation of students who will be using our class computers on any given day (for example, 3 students/day so students will blog once every week and a half or so)
* Each student will have their own blog page where they will post examples of their work and this will act as their digital portfolio.  I will aim to have each student post at least once/month. I will borrow ideas from Kathy Cassidy's post about Digital Portfolios:
* Students will also prepare posts for our class blog, which will be what we share during the QuadBlogging experience.

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If we want to have an authentic audience, we need to be an authentic audience.  Part of our experience will include learning how to make useful comments.
With young students, we can start by co-constructing comments as a class, working towards the eventual goal of students commenting independently.

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This is a project that I hope to implement once our blogging has begun. I think it will offer my students material to blog about and further opportunity for global understanding. I have signed up to iEARN to get the process started.

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Methodology - Cross Curricular Connections

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Methodology - Cross Curricular Connections

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Although blogging has strong ties to writing, students will be encouraged to create posts to represent all areas of our learning, including math, science and social studies.

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I have a drafted a letter to go out to parents about student blogs to inform them of the value and gain their permission.

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Methodology - Sharing with Parents and the School Community

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Methodology - Sharing with Parents and the School Community

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Student blogs will be shared with parents and the larger school community in hopes that these groups will also contribute to our blog comments and increase our authentic audience.  In order to protect student privacy, we will use the following guidelines adapted from the classroom blog "Global Grade 3"
1.  Students will be identified by their first name only
2.  Photographs of the classroom and students will not be identified
3.  All student work will be checked by Mrs. Martinez before being published on the blog
4.  Parent permission must be granted before students can post on their blogs
5.  Parents who leave comments are also asked to use first names only

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1.  Follow up with QuadBlog to establish a quad.
2. Follow up with iEARN about the Teddy Bear project and figure out timing.
3.  Once I get a class list, prepare the class blog and a blog page for each student using KidBlog.
4.  Touch base with my Principal to see about any additional privacy/safety concerns.
5.  In September, send out parent consent letter.

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After reviewing relevant research, I strongly believe that students will find a spark for writing when they have an audience who will comment and encourage them to keep on sharing their ideas. Developing this plan will give me a kickstart for next year so that I can hit the ground running in September! I look forward to seeing what my students will create!