First Class Blog in Brief
Teacher Name: Gordon Brune
Link: http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blog_id=281647
School: Mamaroneck Avenue Elementary School
Location (state/province): Mamaroneck, NY
Subject: 5th grade

Additional information about the teacher : Mr. Brune's experience with his class blogs leads him to join with his district’s Teachers Institute, Joann Noto, adjunct professor at Teachers College, Columbia University, and technology educator and consultant David Niguidulafor in planning a formal study of the impact of his class blogs. He hopes to find "tangible evidence" to stand behind his belief that the class blog has had a positive effect on his students.
Mr. Brune also maintains a class web page at http://mrbrune.org

Nominated by: TeachersFirst Editors
Blogging tool used: Class Blogmeister

The blog tool: (excerpted from a longer response by Mr. Brune)

Features of this blogging tool that made it useful for a teaching tool?  
... I needed full controls over what gets posted and what comments were published... a blogging tool that had full moderation controls....
... does not offer a lot of customization for the student’s to play with
...no one seems to be as sensitive to teacher’s needs [as] David [Warlick]
Blogmeister was also different than other blogging tools in that it was constructed with a student-centered structure in mind.... a separate area for each student’s work...
... the community of Blogmeister users keeps me a loyal user.

Ease of use of this tool when starting a classroom blog?
If teachers want to use blogs in their classroom, I envision Blogmeister being the easiest tool to use.
...If [students] knew how to word process they could learn to blog.

Highlighting TeachersFirst Class Blogger Gordon Brune

TeachersFirst is please to announce another TeachersFirst Class Blog Award Winner.
Mr. Brune's class blog shows clear evidence that students are writing to learn.

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How the class uses the blog: (Excerpted from Mr. Brune's responses)

Blogs also gave us something more than a bulletin board on the Internet. It gave anyone visiting a way to correspond with each student about his or her work. I wanted our webpage to focus on the work.

Clearly the best aspect is the motivation it affords the students to write and publish their work to others. There is a palpable sense that students enjoy writing to the webpage, knowing that there will be others that will look at the work and submit comments about it. The students also clearly enjoy “commenting” to others’ work.

I think the interest the students have has had some impact on their growth as readers, writers, and thinkers.

...the blog has allowed my students and I to make long-distance connections ...a student in my class last year... said it best: “Man! People in China are looking at my stuff!”

The best/worst aspects of using a class blog: (excerpts from Mr. Brune)
Clearly the best aspect is the motivation it affords the students to write and publish their work to others.

The worst aspect is the time it requires to moderate the students’ postings and comments. In my mind, though, the students’ growing interest in writing to the blog justifies this time.

But the biggest frustration ... is trying to do this with only four classroom computers and a once-a-week visit to the school’s computer lab. I often wonder what the students could do if they had ubiquitous access to computers and the Internet!

Continued plans for the blog:
a project with other 5th grade teachers and librarian\media specialists from each of the other [local] elementary schools [to balance the blog's "long-distance connections"]

a formal study in order to measure outcomes of this work... to present the findings at the ... National Educational Computing Conference (NECC) in San Antonio in June 2008.

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If you know a teacher who is actively using blogs with students to facilitate student understanding of curriculum, encourage writing as expression, and promote good writing skills, please let us know. TeachersFirst would like to highlight these blogging successes as examples and help other teachers see the rich possibilities of classroom blogging.

Note: Please check with the teacher first before you nominate. TeachersFirst needs his/her responses via email to some basic questions to complete our profile of the First Class blog.

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