Blogging is an online, digital form of writing that has always appealed to me as a teacher. I see blogging as an exciting way to enable my students to express their thoughts and share them with the world while learning the important lessons of online safety at the same time. We use blogs as digital portfolios so that the learners can show their families what they have created. We use Blogger because the teacher can have control over the blogs.
The amount of learning that can happen through blogging is very beneficial. The students not only learn about online safety, but also about formatting, editing, and how to work with images and videos as they work on their blogs. best is they are creating!
The classes were able to create lovely headers in Canva and they added their avatars and poems to their blogs as well.
Week 2's tasks were to discuss good commenting skills, create a ‘How to
comment’ page on your blog and make a set of commenting guidelines. We
used the poster created by Kathleen Morris some years ago.
Interesting pointers from the Week 2 post in Edublogs
1. Here are some examples of commenting guidelines: Huzzah commenting guidelines, a Glogster poster about commenting, WarriorKat used a variety of tools for her guidelines, notice how Sophie included a link back to Mrs Yollis’ blog where she got her information from, Emme created a PowToon, Darcey included some interesting points, Kyndal has her guidelines here.
2. Each week the best posts are published in the Student Blogging Challenge are featured in the Blogging Challenge's Flipboard magazine.
2. I should have an image at the side of this blog saying Class blogs which I don't have yet!
3. The Week 1 post on Edublogs has some great ideas. I am going to add soe of them here to do at different times of the year. For example, this video entitled 'What is a blog' was included in the Week 1 post in Edublogs along with a link to a PDF activity. I am embedding the video and attaching the PDF here.
4. This Symbaloo mix of Avatar creation sites (shown below) was added to the Week 1 post. Click on the Symbaloo image below to be take to the original mix.
5. This selection of About me page ideas was added in the post. I thought I would add it here as there are some great ideas.
Write a poem
Write an A-Z paragraph eg I am an athletic, yet brainy child who decided that saving the environment is one of my future goals. Check out how one of the mentors created her about me page especially for the student blogging challenge
Some of my grades already had blogs so we are using those. Others are starting from scratch. We want to be totally ready for the Student Blogging Challenge when itt opens in the first week of March 2017. Here are the three presentations I used to get my classes ready with their blogs.
1) We created blogs
The Grade 4s and all new learners in the Intermediate Phase created new blogs. I placed the presentation below into Google Classroom so that they could folow the instructions step-by-step.
2) We uploaded Avatars and the Blogging Badge to the blogs
Each learner added their avatar in the sidebar of the blog as a widget, by going to Add Gadget and uploading an image gadget. They did the same for the Blogging Badge.
3) We created an About Me page as well as a Comments Page to the blogs
Each learner created an About Me page to introduce themsleves and a How to Comment page on their blog following the instructions below.
We are getting our blogs ready for the Edublogs Student Blogging Challenge which begins at the beginning of March. This week we are creating avatars. I am going to use three different avatar sites this year. n this post we'll look at Brick-a-pic which I used with Grade 7.
Grade 7 avatars - use Brickapic
I am cross-posting some information from a post that I wrote for the Schoolnet blog in 2016 which contains information on Bric-a pic. Brick-A-Pic is found at http://me.brickapic.com/. This is a web-based site where you simply upload an image to the site and follow the prompts;and Brick--a-pic turns your image into a stunning LEGO® brick mosiac. You can view your image from different angles and then you can save your image to your computer. I used this in my Grade 7 class with very pleasing effects. Let me show you how it works.
How to use Brick-A-Pic
Before the lesson starts make sure that you have taken a portrait photo of each student and that these are uploaded to a place where your students can access them easily. 1. Open Brick-A-Pic and upload an image
Go to http://me.brickapic.com/. When Brick-A-Pic opens on its landing page you'll be asked to choose and upload an image. The preview box underneath will give an idea of the image. When you upload your image you'll see how it looks. I'll use an image of myself as an example.
2. View your image from different angles
You can bring your image in closer or move it further away
3. View the result
I saved a close-up version and a distant version of my image.
To save your image all you do, if you are using Google Chrome, is right click on the image and save it in your chosen destination.
4. Image options
Brick-a-pic does give some save options underneath the image, which will probably come into effect if you are using a browser different to Chrome. (I am not sure how other browsers work with this site.
Examples of my student's Brick-A-Pic images
This was a simple easy-to-use site. No sign-in was needed. The class had a lot of fun creating their lego-like avatars in this lesson. We are using them on their blogs as profile pictures
Try using Brick-A-Pic. Your students will enjoy the lesson.
Blogging is a digital form of writing that has always appealed to me as a teacher. I see blogging as an exciting way to enable my learners to express their thoughts and share them with the world while learning the important lessons of online safety at the same time. The amount of learning that can happen through blogging is priceless.
Why I want my learners to blog
1) Blogging is a great way to introduce Internet safety:
These days our learners need to know how to keep safe online. We start off by learning about online safety and all the precautions we need to take to keep safe. The main rule is that to be safe online we must not post personal information about ourselves such as our last name, our email address, phone number, home address, etc. When commenting on posts often learners have to give their email addresses and I always explain that this is fine as it’s not posted on the Internet; however they must only use their school address.
2) Blogging is a great way to introduce politeness
Our learners need to know that on the Internet they must be polite at all times. They should never post anything that could hurt anyone. When they comment on other blogs they need to realise that they represent their school and that the world will judge the school by their words.
3) Blogging is a fantastic way to strengthen the connections between the school and home
Parents and relatives can view the bogs and get an insight to the work the learners are doing.
4) Blogging is a great way to connect learners to the world
Every year Edublogs runs a Student Blogging Challenge, a ten-week challenge which connects learners and also teaches great blogging skills. This year my classes are participating so that we get a good start to our blogging adventures. Commenting on other blogs is a great way to be an active blogger.
5) Blogging is a great way to promote writing
Blog writing introduces a whole new range of digital writing skills such as hyperlinking, embedding. Adding media, knowledge about creative commons licenses and plagiarism, categorising posts, commenting on other posts and labelling posts, etc. It also focuses on traditional writing characteristics and the need for good content, correct grammar and interesting vocabulary. When learners realise they are writing for a wider audience their writing improves.
6) Blogging promotes 21st century skills
Silvia Tolisano posted this excellent poster on her Langwitches Blog which sums up the 21st Century skills that can be addressed through blogging.
Since I am the G Suite administrator at my school, I am able to provide every child in Grade 4-7 with a school email address, with a control over lost passwords. I use Google Classroom for all my directives to the learners, and also as a place where they add their assignments. When it was time for use to start our blogs we logged into our school email addresses and typed in 'Blogger'. This took us to a place where we could create a blog that was controlled by our school with the same login and password details as the learners' email addresses.
I then asked the learners to post their new blog addresses into Google Classroom, and I also made a list of all the blog addresses on my own technology blog for easy access.
Let me close this post with another fantastic resource from Silvia Tolisano's Langwitches blog. This summarises suggested steps for blogging in the classroom.
This year I am very keen that all my classes from Grade 3 - 7 have their own blogs. I have made the decision to use the following platforms: Grades 3 and 4: Kidblog Grades 5,6 and 7: Blogger blogs
One of the things I love about using Google Apps is that you can use Blogger with Under 13s and have control over the blogs. I love the seeing how everything from Google works together! So far the Grade 6s and 7s have their blogs. They loved creating them I have to say! Tomorrow is the turn of the Grade 5s.
This is the presentation that I have created and added to Google Classroom as a guide should any of them not get finished creating their blog during my lesson with them.
I am very keen for my Grade 9 class to have their own blogs as this is a fantastic way to teach online safety. I read a lovely blogpost by Jacqui Murray about creating a blogging manifesto with a class and decided to use this idea with my Grade 9 class.What are good guidelines for young bloggers? My thought was that we would discuss the topic and create some guidelines for ourselves in preparation for when we create our blogs.
We then started on the process of creating our own blogs using Blogger. Here is the presentation I made for the students to refer to if they felt lost!
Their final task was to:
Pretty up their blogs by adding a background etc.
Add a post today about the blogging manifesto we created
One of the really useful features that blogging platforms, and definitely Blogger, includes is the ability to write a post and then schedule when you would like it to be published. I haven't used this much in the past, but now, writing about it, I can see a lot of advantages to using this feature. I thought I would give a quick outline here on how to do this. 1. Write your post in the normal manner using the new post template and give the post its title.
2. When you have finished look for the word Schedule on the right side and click on it.
3. Click on Add date and time. Select the date and choose the time. (Note:You need to make sure that your blog is set to the time zone of your country before you start with it. That can be done by going to Settings on your dashboard and choosing Language and Formatting/Time Zone.) When you are done choose Done!
4. Now you need to click on Publish. Under normal circumstances this would publish your blogpost to the web immediately – but you’ll get a pleasant surprise when you see the post only publishes at the set time on the chosen day. Wonderful! Try it sometime.
Submitted by Fiona Beal Recently I have read a couple of intriguing blog posts about the importance of backing up your blog, and even using sites such as BlogBooker to make a PDF or printed book of your blog – and I thought that today would be the day to try some of these ideas. What is BlogBooker? BogBooker advertises itself like this: "BlogBooker: From your Blog to a Book." http://www.blogbooker.com/
The website says that “BlogBooker produces a high-quality PDF Blog Book from all your blog's entries and comments. Archives can be generated from any blog running on WordPress, LiveJournal or Blogger. The whole process takes about 3-4 minutes, depending on the size of your blog. Blogbooker is a free service offered thanks to donations.“
How does it work?
You submit an export file provided by your blog system to BlogBooker.
Your file is verified and all linked images are fetched.
Entries, comments and Images are assembled into a high-quality PDF.
The PDF is provided without any restriction and thus can be submitted for printing to third-parties.
High quality images are only allowed if you donate.
The first step Before you start you need to export your blog and download it as a .xml file and store it on your computer. Most blogs tell you how to do this under 'Settings'.
How to export your blog to Blogbooker Once you open BlogBooker and add your blog details it helps you with this process. All you have to do is follow the prompts and make a few decisions about the final outcome. What happens if you are not satisfied with the PDF? This is what happened to me! I wasn’t happy with the layout but was unable to edit it as it was in PDF format. So then I set about finding a free PDF to Word Converter. I decided on ‘Free PDF to Word Converter’, downloaded it and set about the conversion process.
The result was great. I could edit the pages and move the layouts and images around.
A SlideShare of the process! I thought I would document my journey with this process on a Slideshare. Here it is...
Educational use 1. If you have a classroom blog you can export it, download it and give it to your students as a memory of their year with you at school. 2. You can also turn your blog PDF into a hard covered book format with one of the web services that do this. BlogBooker has a suggestion for this. 3. You can create a memoir of your year at school recording your journey in teaching year by year. Imagine how you'll feel at retirement one day with a collection of memories in this format. Try it! It would be interesting to hear how you went about this.
This morning as I was researching on the Internet the thought struck me that a huge amount of my professional growth over the past few years has come from reading blogs written by teachers. There are so many really fantastic teachers sharing what they do in their classroom with the world and benefiting so many others in the process. I would say that blogs play a very large part in driving the education revolution that is taking place world-wide. The incredible part is that blogs are free to create! So thank you to all those blogger educationists out there! Useful blogging posts I have noticed an upsurge in the number of blogs started by educationists. This morning I read about a blogger who has been blogging for ten years, Graham Stanely, and who is celebrating the event with two reflective posts. He calls his posts Reflections on ten years blogging - part oneand Reflections on ten years of blogging - part two. In these posts he talks about his journey with blogging with his journey and all he has learned along the way. Another great post I saw recently on blogging is The ultimate guide to the use of blogs in teachingposted on the Educational Technology and Mobile Learning blog. This is a comprehensive post which elaborates on the following headings: 1- What is Blogging ? 2- Difference between A Blog and a Website 3- Free Blogging Platforms for Teachers and Students 4- How to set up a blo 5-Things to Pay Heed to when Setting up a Classroom Blog 6- Blogging Tips for Teachers 7- Advantages of Blogging in Education 8- Ways Teachers Can Use Blogs in their Classrooms 9- Examples of Successful Student, Class, and Teacher Blogs In face this great infographic below comes from another post on the same blog.
Edublogs has done a major job in promoting blogging among teachers. Every year they hold the Edublogs Awards which has various interesting categories. A good place to start with any research on blogs is to look at those who were the winners in the Edublogs Awards for 2012. If one had to list the benefits of blogging I'm sure the list would get into the 100s and more! What is your view on blogging? Have you tried it? You won't regret it.
Recently I was opening my Blogger blog when I was directed to a message from Google saying that people in two parts of the world (Austria and Sweden) were trying to access the blog. Google gave the IP address of the devices concerned They had refused permission to these unknown people but wanted to know if I wanted to give them access – good old Google! They advised me to change my password in case it was someone trying to compromise my account…which of course I did. So I knew it was time for me to back up my blog!
Other reasons for backing up a blog I remember Richard Byrne on this blog Free technology 4 teachers urging his readers one time, as a weekend project, to back up our blogs; so I crossed over to his post for guidance. He gives some good reasons for backing up a blog, 'The fact of the matter is, if we rely on a free web-based service we should be aware of the possibility that it could shut-down or move to a fee model at some point. To that end, we should be in the habit of periodically creating offline back-ups of our data.’
How to back up a blog? It is a relief to know that nothing happens to the original blog when you backup! I have put the steps I took into a Slideshare. It was rather nerve-wracking at first as I imagined how it would be if something went wrong and I lost the whole blog! To allay that fear I practised on a not-too-important previous blog and all went well. So here is what I did...
What else can be done with the exported file? If you decide to change blogging platforms you can import the xml backup files to the new blog. Amazing! The other thing you can do with the xml file is convert it to a PDF and make it into a book using BlogBooker – a free service! It takes about 5 minutes. Imagine how nice it would be to do this for your students’ blogs at the end of a year! BlogBooker points to some public examples on the web to look at.
You can also get this done professionally on the web into a hard cover book using blog2print. I have seen one of these at a friend's house and they are lovely.
If you are the proud owner of a Blogger or Edublogs/Wordpress blog please think about backing up your blog. It would be a terrible plight to lose all those hard-earned hours of work just like that!
One of the first things I think any teacher who is interested in technology-integration should do is create their own classroom blog. A classroom blog can transform your class even if the only computer in the class is yours - your laptop! It will give the parents a peek into the classroom setup, and it will join you to a whole lot of new blogging teacher friends around the world. You can involve your students in your blog in so many exciting ways. Google's Blogger is a great blogging platform that gives ample free space, and it is also very attractive to look at and user-friendly to use.
So, take the challenge and see if my instructions will help you.
Once you have created your blog there will be other questions you will come up with. So the next Slideshare looks at the following questions and provides screenshots:
Well, that should keep you occupied for a while, but the end result will be something you can be proud of. Tomorrow we will take a look at how to backup your blog.
Just the other day I was showing a group how to blog using one of my favourite sites - Blogger.com - when I discovered to my shock that the new interface was now mandatory. No more hiding behind what one was once comfortable with. I then decided to get to know the new interface and made screenshots as I went along. I would really like to share these with you and encourage you to make yourself a blog. A classroom blog is one of the things you can do to transform your class even if the only computer in the class is yours - your laptop!
So, take the challenge and see if my instructions will help you.
Once you have created your blog there will be other questions you will come up with. So the next Slideshare looks at the following questions and provides screenshots:
Well, that should keep you occupied for a while, but the end result will be something you can be proud of. If you happen to create a blog using these directions please let me know your blog address!
Recently I created a Slideshare called ‘Your blog can be a fantastic teaching tool’ and I wrote from the standpoint of the teacher using a blog to teach. I posted this in an earlier blog post. Here it is just as a reminder.
Today’s post examines how a blog can be very beneficial to the students in a classroom, and in this case, an English classroom. Create a blog for yourself and for your students One of the best ways to start transforming your classroom is to first create your own blog and then let the students create theirs. Link their blogs to yours by using a blog roll. Look at the example from Mrs Albanese's class. Here is the perfect example of the students blogs listed down the side. This is very important because often you want the students to comment on each other’s postings and this way is easy because they simply visit your blog and easily find the rest of the students' blogs. http://mrsalbanese.edublogs.org
Which blogging platform?
Naturally you want to use platform that is safe, economical, spacious and attractive.There are many options but I will just mention four.
Edublogs Now that Edublogs no longer has advertising on it it is a much better proposition to use. Edublogs provides a very small amount of storage space, so I pay for extra space yearly. You can then create student blogs yourself using something called the gmail hack, so that you have access to passwords. (The Edublogger is a great site with plenty of tips and tricks on how to do things like that) The only problem is that Edublogs doesn’t allow much space on their free blogs for the learners. But it would probably do for a year of work. http://bellbulldogreaders.edublogs.org/
BloggerI particularly love using Blogger for myself because it gives loads of free space and has a nice feel and touch. The templates are also very attractive. However, it is often felt to be unsuitable for students because of “the next blog” icon at the top. http://mediaspecialistsguide.blogspot.com/
PosterousSome people rave about using Posterous blogs for collaborative projects. The reason for this is that you can send an email from anywhere to your posterous blog. It then becomes a draft ready for you to edit and publish. To get details for this look at: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/28413/blog-from-anywhere-instantly-with-posterous/ (I have since discovered that you can also post to your blog using Blogger.) Here is an example of a posterous blog used for a global collaborative project. http://kstadler.posterous.com/
KidblogsThere has been a lot of talk about Kidblogs being a safe and simple platform. The Kidblog ‘About page’ says “Kidblog allows teachers to monitor and control all publishing activity within the classroom blogging community.” I haven’t personally used Kidblog, but it is supposedly really easy for creating a class blog and blogs for your students. Here is a post that tells more about the pros and cons of using Kidblog: http://blogallaboutit.edublogs.org/2010/04/23/kidblog-an-easier-alternative-to-blogging-with-elementary-students/
Well, I am sure you have plenty of ideas of what you can do with a blog in an English class. I will add ideas to these further along in this post. It is certainly a fantastic way to get your students writing. To start off take alook at Mr Miller’s blog and see how he uses his blog for his English lessons. I like the way he also has a wiki to support the blog. In my thinking the two go together… http://millersenglish10.blogspot.com
What activities can you do on a blog in an English class?
As you know English has four main strands – reading, writing, language and listening and speaking. These can be beautifully incorporated into blogging.
1. Let your learners answer questions and respond to prompts online. You could set a question on your blog and the learners can answer the question in your comment box. Notice how The Hawks Talk does this. http://stgeorgesenglish.comThey can then extend the conversation by answering your next question or prompt and then post comments on each others blogs.
2. For literature lessons, invite an author to post on your blog and let the learners comment on this post. This is a great way to have book discussions online. You could even try and organise a Skype interview with the author and let the slearners summarise this afterwards. There must be plenty of examples of Skype chats with authors, but here is a post about one with Scientist. http://techblog.stcyprians.net/index/skype-chats-with-scientists-by-ms-n-wallace 3. The learners identify and discuss the major points of a book, article, speech etc.
4. The learners write good book summaries and assess others summaries using a rubric. http://lhsblog.edublogs.org/
5. Let the learners post reviews of movies, books, concerts, games etc regularly.
6. Use a blog to archive daily class notes. You (or someone in the class) could post summaries on to your class blog. This will be helpful to students who may be absent.
7. For listening and speaking activities learners could use a MP3 player, read into it and then post it on the blog. They could concentrate on voice modulation, inflection, and tempo. The learners could then listen to each others’ speaking activities. You can virtually put anything on a blog. There’s a programme called embedit.in which gives anything the necessary HTML code which is necessary if you wish to include it on a blog or wiki
8. The learners could make presentations on different things and then embed their presentations on webpages. My Slideshare above mentions how useful Box.net is for this.
9. They could learn about language conventions and then practise using the example on your blog. You could post weekly exercises for them to do. The following is an old blog but it gives some ideas like this.
http://hargraves12.wordpress.com You could take this further and ask them to make podcasts and even slideshows of difficult conventions.
10. As they read a novel prescribe blog prompts for them to respond to.
11. They could paraphrase sections that you post on the blog.
12. You could teach the learners the structure of workplace documents and let them analyse them in terms of heading, font, pictures and readability etc. They could make suggestions on how to improve them.
13. When starting a new theme create a “KWL chart” on your blog. Have students blog about what they know, what they want to know, and eventually what they have learned. Students will be able to see other posts and scaffold their learning off the responses of others. As the educator, you can quickly assess, focus, and possibly redirect your unit to meet the specific needs of your students.http://teachinghistory.org/system/files/KWL+Chart+with+Knowledge+Questions.pdf
14. You could link documents to a folder in Box.net (also a free programme). Notice how Mrs Lesniak does this. http://lesniakenglish.blogspot.com/
15. On your blog you could communicate with parents about classroom news, policies and events. You could publish commendable student work, writing, photos, video etc. http://bgenglish.blogspot.com/
19. Illustrate to the students how they can use technology on their blogs. You can do this by using screencasts on your blog or just be blog posts. http://shelleywright.wordpress.com/
24. Don’t forget about using a fake facebook page (template in Google Docs) which could be then embeeded into the blog. This teacher created a fantastic template last year in Google docs that he is willing to share. http://www.teachthecloud.com/2011/02/historical-facebook-tutorial.html
And to end off this post here is a fantastic Ning for English teachers which will undoubtedly have plenty of resources and ideas. http://englishcompanion.ning.com/
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