There's that one thing that you did that one year and it was magical, so you decided you would do that same thing every year in exactly the same way so you could replicate that magic, except you neglected to remember that each year is different and magic does not replicate and so you almost threw the whole thing out.
Yup. That was me and classroom blogging.
Instead of throwing it out, I changed my entire approach. In the magical year, we did a 15-minute free-write, then spent some time reading and commenting. That year (and only that year), it worked not to have rules and boundaries.
This year, we've been talking about our passions -- the things in life we care most about. My students had a week-long homework assignment to write a handwritten page about their passion(s) before they ever knew that that writing would/could be their introductory blog post. This year, the students' blogs have a theme, or topic, the way most blogs do in real life. They will be (mostly) exploring their topic/passion in a new way each time they write a blog post.
The biggest change for this year is in the settings. Every blog post and every comment must be approved by me before they go live. I've realized that in order for students to understand and learn to use good online etiquette, their practice needs to be closely monitored and controlled. Comments will be thoughtfully written complete sentences, and blog posts will be on topic and carefully edited.
So far, so good. It looks like perhaps the magic hadn't gone completely away, it was just hanging around waiting for me to be responsive and flexible about the way it would show its face.
