Our brilliant librarians have a few cute friends who make appearances through the year and who I personally have enjoyed interactions with. I still feel terrible about the bacon joke I made in front of Rita the Pig, but she has a great sense of humor.
In teaching what a blog is to younger kids, they’ve often heard the word “blog”, but have little chance to interact with a blog in an authentic way. Last year, I showed the blog from “Dog with a Blog” and they enjoyed it because many have seen the TV show. But, still, I wanted to something more personal. Someone they could relate to, post comments to, and interact with on a more personal level. Someone whose videos and writings could be what a good blog post is.
Meet Pearl. Yes, she even has an adorable PreK smock on. Seriously- just like the kiddos wear. And now? Pearl’s going to start blogging. While Pearl is feeling a bit sheepish about joining the blogging world, she’s ready to exercise her voice and model digital citizenship, or what I like to call “global citizenship,” because Pearl is just as kind in person as she is online. For starters, and what Pearl can help emphasize:
- She never uses her last name.
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- She never tells the name of her school or home address online.
- She only shares comments when they are kind, honest, responsible, and respectful.
- She is hoping she’ll receive comments from around the world, so that our students will understand that a global network means the school, the neighborhood, the world.
Pearls of Wisdom (Thanks for that amazing idea, E.H!) is launching soon to an internet near you. For now, Pearl is enjoying her last few days of summer lounging by the pool with a good book, The Portait of a Sheep, a book ewe would love.
So, does your school have a mascot that could blog? Older students could help write the posts, younger students could learn about commenting and interact with the blog. You could even have a paper version of the blogger that could travel the world to show true global interaction. The best way to teach our global citizen’s skills is to model for them, and what better way to model them than through a fun blogger that kids will enjoy, written just for them?
Pearl’s hoping she can leave comments for other friends and is going to be building a blog roll. We hope you’ll join us!
