What things do I include on my blog?

One of the most attractive things in a blog [...]]]> Educational blogs are becoming more and more useful everyday. There is also a really wide range of topics you can focus your blog on. In my case, my blog is completely focused on my class.

What things do I include on my blog?

• Photos.

One of the most attractive things in a blog are images. If you want your blog to be visited quite often, you should definetly include some galleries in it. The galleries may be about special activities that are carried out with your class, ceremonies, classwork photos, scans and even photos about an ordinary day at school. Parents will always be thankful if you give them a clue of their children’s behaviour and work at school.

• Links.

Remember all those cool bookmarks you’ve saved in your browser? Well, go through all of them once more and copy them to your link list on your blog. You may include links about education in general, online games, other blogs related to yours, other schools blogs, etc.

• Calendars.

You might as well include a small calendar with weekly activities. And don’t be scared, I’m not talking about some super cool calendar; well, if you want to you can actually do it. If this isn’t your case, you can always use Word and create a simple chart to create your weekly calendar.

E.g.:

Homeworks and tests

• Classroom duties.

• Books that children will have to read.

• Positive reinforcement! E.g.: A list of the boys who’ve behaved the best during the whole week.

• Brief summaries.

Sometimes I make these short handouts with an explanation I consider children must study a little harder. If I notice that in one of the quizzes, children had problems with an explanation or concept, I prepare these little “helpers”. These are basically handouts for the parents to download, so that they can practice with their kids at home. Sometimes parents want to help their kids with their subjects, and when they go to their notebooks, they see that there’s nothing clear in there, and if there is, it’s written in an illegible handwriting and they feel lost.

Here’s one example of an english handout I made for my second graders. Click on the image to take a look at the .pdf

I hope this information is useful for you.

To go and check out our 2nd graders blog go to:

http://mackaysegundob.blogspot.com/

Do you have any other cool ideas for a school blog? Post them!

]]> http://www.misscarolina.cl/2008/11/what-should-i-include/feed/ 0 http://www.misscarolina.cl/2008/09/whats-in-a-blog/ http://www.misscarolina.cl/2008/09/whats-in-a-blog/#comments Mon, 22 Sep 2008 19:45:03 +0000 Miss Carolina http://www.misscarolina.cl/?page_id=44 I’m sure you’ve heard the word BLOG a thousand times nowadays…

But hey! What’s a blog??? :S

A blog (a contraction of the term “Web log”) is a Web site, usually maintained by an individual [1], with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics [...]]]> I’m sure you’ve heard the word BLOG a thousand times nowadays…

But hey! What’s a blog??? :S

A blog (a contraction of the term “Web log”) is a Web site, usually maintained by an individual [1], with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video.

Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (artlog), photographs (photoblog), sketches (sketchblog), videos (vlog), music (MP3 blog), audio (podcasting), which are part of a wider network of social media. Micro-blogging is another type of blogging, one which consists of blogs with very short posts. As of December 2007, blog search engine Technorati was tracking more than 112 million blogs.[2] With the advent of video blogging, the word blog has taken on an even looser meaning — that of any bit of media wherein the subject expresses his opinion or simply talks about something.

-Wikipedia

Some Ideas for an educational blog.

Post a Prompt

Put a biweekly writing prompt up on the blog and have your students respond to it by a certain day.  Ask them to also comment on one of their classmates ideas, drawing a name from a hat or rotating to be sure that all students receive a comment from someone. Foster process writing peer-editing by asking each student to make a suggestion for improvement to content and  mechanics (editing) of the other student’s submission.

If you use the approval process before allowing student responses to show, you can skim posts to be sure there is nothing cruel or inappropriate. Invite parents to comment back to their elementary children.

The week in Review

Appoint a weekly blog team in your elementary classroom to write that week’s blog entry, describing the events of the week in Room XYZ. Invite moms and dads to comment and watch the excitement grow! Soon you will have students begging to write the summaries.

Bonus: Those who are at home due to illness will not feel as disconnected from their classroom, a great boon during flu season!

Respond to a reading

Practice good reading strategies and check comprehension by asking students to respond to an assigned reading, reflecting on how it applies to their own experience. For example, after reading a non-fiction piece about the McCarthy Era, students could tell about their own experiences with labeling.

Find the facts

Post a statement with no supporting facts. Ask students to find facts to support or refute the opinion, using links to reliable web sites and their own persuasive explanations. This could work well for environmental issues, political issues, or any topic that is debatable.

Critique a web site

Post a link to a web site related to a topic your are studying and invite students to give their personal evaluation: Does the site show bias? Does it seem well-researched? Is it a reliable source?

Comment on current events
Post a link to a current events story and ask students to comment on its implications in your local community or their own lives. Even young students can respond to stories from the local paper’s online pages.

Report on a vacation or long weekend (gr 1-12)

When returning from a break, ask students to write a blog entry from the point of view of the family dog on their weekend trip or even as the duffle bag/suitcase  they packed and took along. Always encourage commenting on other’s stories.

Make a “suggestion box” blog (gr 2-12)

Invite students to contribute ideas to make our classroom a better place or make this a better course.

Question blog (gr 2-12)

Invite students to submit a question about course content, related ideas, or “I have always wondered” in advance of starting a new unit. Asking everyone to express one curiosity before starting the unit will give you a place to focus and make the content more meaningful to them. This idea is sort of an electronic KWL Chart!

Lab research collaboration (gr 7-12)

In a high school science class, encourage students to share lab data they found and collaborate in writing up lab reports on the class blog. You can require lab report format, but other lab partners can read and comment on reports they feel are great (or lacking). This also allows students to se the variety of data collected from the class. Even if you only require one “blogged” lab report a marking period, the process will make a difference.

Continuing Stories (gr 2-12)

Start a blog story (set up the setting, characters, and initial situation in an opening paragraph) and let each student who visits comment by adding a sentence or two. If someone gets unruly or ridiculous, the other authors will quickly comment to that effect! You can make the story support curriculum, too. For example, the story could be “historical fiction” about a family during the Civil War or baby geese who are migrating.

Continuing Vocabulary (gr 6-12)

Start a blog story at the beginning of the year as you begin vocabulary in your English class. Each week, require students to add to the story, using a LOGICAL sentence that both fits the story and uses one of that week’s vocab words. The stories will become lengthy and outrageous as the year goes in, but the kids will be re-reading the words over and over to reinforce them — and laughing as they do! They will NEVER forget those words!

Source: http://www.teachersfirst.com/content/blog/blogideas2.cfm

http://smith9h0708.blogspot.com/ Students posting opinions and advices for next semesters.

READ MORE:

http://blogsavvy.net/how-you-should-use-blogs-in-education/

A GOOD START:

https://www.blogger.com

A VIDEO THAT CAN HELP:

How to create a blog