Student-Moderated Live Blog

Yesterday after school a student invited me to a live blog that he moderates during the evening via wikimail. He uses CoverItLive, then posts the gadget text to his wiki site so that other students that he invites may participate.

When I jumped into the streaming discussion at about 7:15 last night, the conversation seemed to be centered around the results of the election. Most of the students were cheering on their preferred candidate (since the entire school participated in a mock election), talking about what it was like to be an election official, and tracking down other potential participants.

I am interested to read about last night's experience in their wiki posts later today, but I can say that the participating students' enthusiasm for the conversation pulled me in, too. I posted questions (Should 10 year-olds be able to vote?), shared links (Boulder Daily Camera Letters to the Editor submitted by fifth graders), and adding my feedback to the polls that were posted by the moderator.

This student (and the others that were participating) were constructing meaning of their world in a way that was fresh, engaging, and just-in-time; encapsulating all that I believe in as an educator.

Although the evening abruptly ended at about 8 o'clock with a private message to me saying that he "...needed to get off (of the computer due to parent-required rest)", I felt like the conversation would've continued into the night unabated.

Isn't that what happened here, here, and here?

Blogging Power

A few weeks ago we started live blogging!

Last year's class also blogged, but it seemed to be mostly as an extension of literacy (what does line two, stanza two mean to you, what is the theme of this poem and why, etc.). The login went quickly since all the students had to do was go to this blog and begin. The only problem was that I was always mindful (maybe overly mindful) as the moderator for student safety since we were using a site that was more publicly accessible. As a result, many responses were not posted due to an overly cautious teacher, not to irrelevant/repetitive replies.

This year we have started earlier since there have been a few student who were trying to use the wiki as a blogging tool (my apologies to the space members who received wikimail messages that said (I'm on everyone. Is anyone there?"). We set our expectations (be respectful, be safe, be as accurate as possible with conventions, and be patient while Mr. R. reads all of the messages). We talked about what a moderator is and also how to respond to polling questions that I would post.

Result: Complete student engagement and some student frustration at not always having each response posted immediately.

I will share this tool with Science Council and anyone else who will listen!