Now that you have had time to browse and explore at least 10 examples from our menu of “real-world” edublogs, share with us a blog that stood out to you. Please:
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Give us the name and link to the blog.
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Tell us why this blog stood out to you. Why would you consider it exemplary or a “best practice” type of blog?
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Did you get any ideas for how you could use a blog in your classroom or practice from this blog? If so, please share.
Filed under: In-Class Activities | Tagged: blogging, Day 1, explore, tour of the blogs
I enjoyed exploring the different sites. It was great to see how different teachers and administrators use blogging and how it works for them. The variety gave me a lot of ideas about how blogging will work for me.
I found the bolgs very helpful. Some were a little over my head but others were wonderful. I did see that you would need to teach kids how to navigate your blog and learn how you set it up. i like the ides of being able to see what kids have written and respnded to as well.
My faviorite blog was on kindergarten Duck Diaries. It was very interactive for students to use. There was a lot of writing opportunities for students to use to go along with the activities the teachers had provided in teh classroom. There was a lot of research as well as classroom activities and ideas on ducks. It was very fun and I think the students probably had a great time and learned a lot!
It was so helpful (not to mention interesting) to see other blogs. It gave me a better idea of how they are used in classroom. My personal favorites were “The Reflective Teacher” blog, and Rebecca Spears blog. The reflective teacher was interesting to see how he used the blog with his students and as reflection for himself.
I know Mrs. Spears, so it was kind of neat to see her blog. I was amazed at what those kindergartners were doing!
I viewed Art Class Blog. This teacher included pictures of the artwork from her students. She allowed students and parents to comment on the artwork along with adding other topics to comment on.
I also viewed the Architecture and Design Blog. I thought this was a very good site. It offered the students the opportunity to see different types of art work and make responses on them. It also opened the lines of communication between them and also with the teacher.
The blog I most enjoyed is the Extreme Biology BLog. I felt like I was learning something with the comments from the students and from the reports that the students had to place on the blog for comments. I think that sometimes we as teachers think that all of our students are learning at the same rate because we are teaching at the same rate.. Wrong!!! This site was a very easy read and navagational tool. The students were actively engaged with the site, each other, and and the teacher.
Today, I tried to find as many reading/writing blogs as I could so that I can obtain ideas for my classroom. I liked the site on The Outsiders the best because students need to know and understand the vocabulary of the story; however, looking up definitions is very boring and unproductive. Haveing students create a page like this may make learning vocabulary fun and perhaps meaningful.
I also like the sites that had students write summaries about specific chapters, literary terms, etc. which required students to supply support from the text in the blog. Reading blogs would be much better than carrying a crate of journals home all of the time.
This blog is a great way for students to share books that they have enjoyed. Each student posts a review of a book using a podcast. Other students can listen and post comments. My students are constantly saying they can’t find anything to read, and this would help them to find books that would be of interest to them.
I enjoyed the features of Mrs. Myrmel’s Classroom Blog http://blogs.oaisd.org/236 which included the use of Voicethread to highlight information vocally. I also enjoyed the clearness of hearding such as “See What Fun We Had!”, which included pictures of the days events as well as descriptions of what was happening. She even included pictures and summary of an experiment they wre working on in class.
One of the things I would use in my blog would be graphics buttons.
Browsing several blogs was enlightening. The variety of types, contents, is amazing.
My absolute favorite, because of the author’s age, was the 25 days to make a difference blog. What a wonderful thing for a child to do – charity work for others! And now her teacher joining in with her.
Professionally, I was interested in reading the Practical theory blog. His blogs are long, but well thought out. The links to other blogs and articles upon which his blogs were written were posted as links. While I didn’t have the time to read, i found that helpful, as some of his statements were directly tied to those other publications. A good point was made: what happens when the charter schools fail – where does that leave the students?
Kristine Wood’s blog, of course, was great for all of us media specialists: information accessible, book blogs, etc.
Looking at the Kindergarten Tales blog showed that blogging is even for the babies. It was well set up [big print, easy words, etc] for learning opportunities for that age.
What I found most irritating were the “not kept current” blogs – an art blog even had a comment questioning its existence. May I not be one of those…
In my review of the blogs for this class, I have been able to visualize how I would prefer to use my own blog for students.
While it would be helpful to have a convenient place to list assignments and make announcements, I feel that the most effective blogs were the ones that offered students an opportunity to contribute. I really liked the “Students 2.0″ blog that was totally managed by students as well as the “Twenty Five Days to Make a Difference” blog where a 5th grader uses the blog for charities.
As I perused the various blogs, I found that I spent more time on the visually appealing blogs like the “Passionately Curious” blog that features poetry and photos. While I did not find student posts on this blog, I did see where other teachers replied in appreciation of the sharing of the work. Part of the visually appeal of the blogs includes the organization and the easy to read text on the screen. I like the way that some of the blogs included clearly labeled categories for the links, articles, etc.
I also believe that a successful blog that is to used in the classroom with student response will need to include a blogging policy and even a list of the characteristics of successful bloggers such as the one on “Mrs. Tornrose A. P. English” blog. These clear expectations will help to lead to much more productive blogging project.
After looking through the many different blogs, I discovered several unique ways to incorporate blogs into the classroom. Mrs. Gilbert’s 3rd grade blog was probably the most diverse blog that I reviewed. She has blogging assignments posted and student responses. In addition, at the top of the blog page she posted updated class news. A link was provided with a picture about the star of the week. Then students were able to congratulate and make comments to the star student. I also liked the way Mrs. Gilbert had a “fieldtrip” link. The link provided a virtual fieldtrip to a variety of landmarks throughout the US. She not only posted pictures, but she also provided information for the students to read. Before each student could go on to another destination, he or she had to answer questions in their passport books. I love this idea! I wish I was still teaching SS, so I could incorporate a virtual “fieldtrip”.
Another blog that I found interesting was the Outsiders blog. This was a blog that simply provided vocabulary for each chapter in the novel “The Outsiders”. I don’t think this blog provided for students response. If I were to create a vocabulary blog, I would like to have a place where the students could respond–maybe using the words in their own sentence, providing additional synonyms, or maybe providing a pictorial representation of the vocabulary words. I wonder how students would post a drawing of their own?
This tour of the blogs activity has been very enlightening on all the different ways we can use a blog platform: to deliver content, as a class portal, to expand class debates or activities, learn specific content (vocabulary), to share opinions or to reflect on the teaching practice or education in general. I have found particularly interesting the Guerrilla Season Book Blog since it shows a very creative and meaningful way to engage students in reading activities through debates, conversations or simply sharing thoughts on what they read. It also shows how blogs can be used to support collaborative projects.