Blogging Assignment – Classroom Blogs

LINK TO
BLOG: http://theedublogger.com/check-out-these-class-blogs/

LINK TO SPECIFIC
BLOG #1:  http://mrmillersblog.com/

Mr. Miller’s classroom blog was exceptional to say the least. The blog is written and updated
by 6^th grade teacher John Miller from room 162 at Chalone Peaks
Middle School in King City, California. Throughout the school year Mr. Miller
uses in addition to Edublogs; Moodle, Skype, TodaysMeet, VoiceThread, and assorted
Google Apps to explore various language arts and history topics. In his blog,
Mr. Miller showcases in some respects the journey and footprints of his class.
As part of what seems the Edublog Challenge, Mr. Miller’s class interacted with
students from other schools around the globe including Great Britain, Australia,
and New Zealand. Through their shared interactive experiences his students
collaborated with and learned a wealth of cultural knowledge. Some of the most
recent posts on Mr. Miller’s blog included videos and goodbyes or farewells
from his students as special thanks for a great year. Throughout the year other
classes shared what they were learning and doing both in and out of the
classroom. All I can say is WOW! I was just blown away by this challenge and
the blog created and developed for use by Mr. Miller’s class.

Before really ever knowing what a blogs purpose was
before doing this assignment – I feel as I have entered a new world! The
Edublog Challenge that Mr. Miller’s 6^th grade class embarked on was extraordinary.
For a history class to gain access and communicate through blogs and various
other technologies with students from schools and countries all around the
world was just incredible. As for myself and being a future physical educator,
I feel as if I can incorporate such blogs and communications with students and
schools around the world as well. What I think would be neat to do would be to teach
a lesson to students from another country about one of our sports – maybe baseball.
On the flip side, most of us don’t know or even understand the rules of say
rugby from Australia or Cricket from Great Britain. Through the use of blogs
and various other technologies we too could learn the rules and view other
classes play the sport. This way we in America could learn the sports of other
cultures and enhance our worldly knowledge on sports that may not be as popular
here. The possibilities are seemingly endless and technology is the key
resource we must learn to use to enhance learning in the future.

LINK TO
BLOG: http://theedublogger.com/check-out-these-class-blogs/

LINK TO
SPECIFIC BLOG #2: http://ssilveri.edublogs.org/

This site entitled In Session: Sentiments from
Silveri’s Class is devoted to Mrs. Silveri’s AP Literature and AP Language
and Composition classes at Mt. Zion High School in Jonesboro, Georgia. Each
class is broken down into weeks and topics where information is provided by
Mrs. Silveri and questions are posed to the class for further discussion. Each
student is to make an original post and make responses to other classmates. The
goal of this blog is to articulate responses to the literature reviewed in class
as well as to chronicle the growth from classroom discussions. Interestingly,
Mrs. Silveri also uses Skype in a section on her blog for students who need extra
help or have questions on assignments. This blog acts as a source for supplemental
assignments outside of the classroom in which tasks for the week are
identified, given, and responded to. I would conclude in saying that this adds
a fair amount of educational value as many of the assignments are once again
posed for additional research tasks and assignments. Further reading and
outside research is common in most of the weekly tasks.

LINK TO
BLOG: http://theedublogger.com/check-out-these-class-blogs/

LINK TO
SPECIFIC BLOG #3: http://mcdonald3rd.edublogs.org/

Mrs. McDonald’s 2^nd grade blog from an elementary school in Michigan highlights
several of the students and classroom experiences and activities. There is many
video’s showing of late the activities of her class as school came to a close.
Dance and dessert day, doughnuts and field day, and the last day of school are among
just a few of the neat posts where videos illustrate the fun students had in
each day’s activities. Mrs. McDonald also posts several pictures of students
throughout several activities including their outdoor chalk drawings. The
videos created included background music and images of the students over the
course of the semester. Incredible! The time and effort to create these videos
and maintain this blog for 2^nd graders none the less was extraordinary.
One of the past posts also shows that Mrs. McDonald utilized this blog as a way
to keep parents up to date with the happenings inside the classroom as well as
a place to post homework for the students. While most of the posts had little
extra educational value the main purpose of this blog exemplifies the
culmination of an incredibly successful and fun year.

These classroom blogs were also a very creative way to remember the school year and
all of the projects various students participated in. That in itself is truly awesome
I believe. I would love to have had my entire 2^nd grade school year
basically photographed and made into videos to remember it further down the
road. It’s incredible the jobs these teachers did in incorporating so many
various forms of technology into their classrooms and blogs. If we could work
something out amongst other schools and teachers in the county – it would be
great to learn from them and show them what neat things we were doing for
various units. I totally think it’s attainable but teachers just have to want
to give it a shot. There is no doubt in my mind that if we showed these blogs
and the enhanced learning that came from them to other teacher – I don’t know
anyone who would not jump on the opportunity. As for professional blogs showing
my professional development; I feel as if these sorts of classroom blogs would
act as indisputable valuable resources to show personal growth and professional
development. These blogs were incredible once again and I don’t know who votes
on teachers of the year but a few of them definitely deserve it for what they
have done for their kids. Simply unbelievable!