Leaving comments on my kids blogs ... so they can listen :)

I encourage blog posting in my class and learners are getting very independent at completing their activities and then posting to their blogs.  They also love to see that someone has been viewing their blogs and get even more excited if a comment is left.  We talk about the comments that have been left in class frequently.

During a week I try to comment on learners blogs in the evening and often will give them things to focus on in their next blog post.  This is great for those learners in my class in the higher reading groups that can easily read my comments.  However, I'm finding my lower readers struggle to read my comments and they are therefore not effective.

This week I'm trialling leaving the comment as written text as well as recording the comment in an audio clip.  I will carefully scaffold with the learners so they know they are able to listen to the comment by clicking on "Listen to Audio".

I'm using a voice recording app on my iPad and then uploading the clip to a folder on my Google Drive and pasting this link into the comment.  It takes me about a minute longer than just leaving a comment, but I think this is worthwhile as feedback is valuable to the learners.

It is important to note that I'm still discussing blog posts and activities in small groups and individually with learners during class time, but its not possible to see every learner, every day.  This gives me an opportunity to give them feedback which I know they will be able to listen to (if they can't read the comment).  Time will tell if this is beneficial and provides additional guidance, scaffolding and motivation for my learners.