Over the summer period my class took part in the Summer Learning Journey. As a school we did extremely well as far as participation and output, but dropped the ball as far as commenting was concerned. Our students actively commented on the blogs of other participants but did not comment in a way that created a thread of comments. I didn't know how to strengthen this understanding so I asked Heather Collins, one of our Manaiakalani facilitators to model a Cybersmart lesson for me. We have access to a wealth of Cybersmart resources but as someone who has been a part of Manaiakalani from the beginning I have not had the opportunity to observe one of these lessons first hand.
Here are the notes I took:
- Begin by stating the purpose of the lesson (- this linked to the reasons I have mentioned above)
- State the Learning Intention - LI: To create a thread of comments
- Display the 'Quality Blog Comments Poster' and unpack
- Ask students to generate sentence starters for 'compliments'
- Model how to write a quality blog comment using a student blog post (promotes a connection)
- Explain that a question has been asked so now needs a reply.
- Ask: How might you reply to this comment?
- Co-construct a reply
Where to next:
- Actively plan time for students to comment on blogs and respond to comments on their own blogs.
- Revisit the Manaiakalani cybersmart lessons to access the resources available. The shared language of instruction will help my learners to continue to build on and strengthen the knowledge they have, and will scaffold and support my students new to Manaiakalani this year.
- Make a display that reflects our unpacking and understanding of how to write a quality blog comment - make it visible - keep it visible.
