Group items tagged

"Benefits for creating a classroom environment for student blogging begin with establishing a foundation for their success. Why is this important? Integrating blogs transforms a classroom into a learning community where students become self-directed learners and thinkers. This in turn, causes students to use higher order thinking skills as they create and post entries in their blogs, along with commenting on other student's blogs."

What it is: What makes technology SO great is the way that it can make life (and teaching) more productive and fun. Over the years, I have found so many ways that technology can make reading more rewarding for both kids who love to read, and kids who dread reading. Today, I created an "Extreme Speed Booking" website for @michellek107′s class at Anastasis. I created the site quickly using Weebly, an awesome WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) website editor. Drag and drop website building is where it is at! The idea behind the site is to introduce students to a variety of books and form classroom book groups. How does Extreme Speed Booking work? A whole lot like speed dating. :) Students spend a little time with each book and then rate them accordingly with "I want to read more", "Interesting", "Not for me", or "I've already read". Students can also make a note of how interested they are in reading the book (maybe a 1-10 scale)? This process introduces students to a variety of books, genres and authors. Students may come across titles and authors they wouldn't otherwise find. It also helps teachers form classroom book groups that are of high-interest and investment to students because they had input.

The Blogs O' Persuasion are a set of blogs devoted to 6th grade student viewpoints on a variety of controversial topics. We are using blogging as the platform for students to share their persuasive writing with other students, teachers, and the world! We would welcome any comments for the students' posts, so please let them know what you think. The skills and knowledge that we are addressing through this project are: Evaluating websites and other online resources to gather research and data to support their persuasive position on a topic Collaborating with others and sharing research sources - we used a Google Form to gather sources and posted all the useful links in the Link Library of each blog Writing persuasively! Writing in a digital space. We taught the students how to use hypertext as linktribution and as a means of enriching the readers' experience. Some students also learned how to add CC licensed images to their posts and give proper attribution. Being good digital citizens. We taught the students about using comments appropriately to communicate with their peers about their posts. Some very cool goals done in an authentic and in an interesting way.

Our "30 days to get your Students Blogging" Challenge is all about guiding you through the process of blogging with your students. This challenge is open to anyone and everyone - and you don't need to be a user of Edublogs at all or have participated in the first challenge. Wherever you're at - we'll step you through the weekly tasks to increase your skills while providing mentors who'll support your learning. Could be something here for every teacher either Blogging or thinking about Blogging.

"Currently, I use wikis to provide supplemental materials for my English language learners. In each wiki, my students enjoy the Voki avatars. Voki is a free service that allows your students to create personalized speaking avatars and embed them on a blog or wiki or send them via e-mail. "

Currently, I use wikis to provide supplemental materials for my English language learners. In each wiki, my students enjoy the Voki avatars. Voki is a free service that allows your students to create personalized speaking avatars and embed them on a blog or wiki or send them via e-mail.

The parents and students were engaged because the students really knew how to maneuver the iPad to demonstrate all of the work that they completed. I could sense that students were taking pride in showing their online professional portfolio, creations, and tweets. I am also thrilled that the professional blogs are a year-to-date body of work. We didn't just show them tests as was in the past, but all the learning experiences that have occurred along the journey. Students had an agenda that they were to follow and parents totally wanted to hear all about it. Some parents and students were present for over a half hour!

OMG some very cool use of web2.0 tech here. What could we use?

Very cool RSS feeds from student blogs. It's important, when managing student blogs, to be able to quickly read all their latest posts and any new comments. Sure you could visit each individual blog but that is incredibly time consuming. The better way, which saves time, is to bring the posts and comments to you using their RSS feed.

Only one month into the new school year and almost every middle school student has their own blog hosted at ISB (plus all of our grade 5s, and quite a few high school students)! Thanks to our fantastic middle school Humanities and Modern Language teachers, who spent their class time helping students create their own blog, we are off and running in record time!

"With all the great resources, websites, articles and other helpful information for educators, it may sometimes be hard to keep track of all these items. Thankfully, e-books have recently been popularized as a way to give educators these educational tools and tips they want and need to help students learn. The best part about these books is that they can be read online, downloaded, printed or just saved for later. What better a way to integrate technology into the classroom than to start by doing it yourself. Here are a few e-books that will be sure to help integrate technology into the classroom and prepare students for the future."

With all the great resources, websites, articles and other helpful information for educators, it may sometimes be hard to keep track of all these items. Thankfully, e-books have recently been popularized as a way to give educators these educational tools and tips they want and need to help students learn. The best part about these books is that they can be read online, downloaded, printed or just saved for later. What better a way to integrate technology into the classroom than to start by doing it yourself. Here are a few e-books that will be sure to help integrate technology into the classroom and prepare students for the future.

Brilliant series for any teacher who is wanting to blog effectively with their students.

"Although YouTube has been blocked from many/most schools, for obvious reasons and not so obvious ones. YouTube does provide great resources and content for teachers and students. View the list of the Top 100 Videos for Teachers. This list is provided by SmartTeaching.org, a leading online resource for current teachers, and aspiring education students and student teachers."

Have a look and see what ones you could use in class.

With all of the new trends and tools in education technology, there's no reason for special needs students and their teachers and parents to be left behind. This list of 100 useful tools can help anyone with a learning disability like ADHD, dyslexia or test anxiety, as well as students with visual or hearing impairments, use the Internet and other technology systems to help them with reading, math, organization, social skills, and more.

In the spring of 2010, I decided to introduce Evernote as a research tool to a group of 10th grade Literature/Composition students at my school. I chose Evernote because these students (part of a learning and technology integration program), were preparing to start a research project using multiple sources of information, including database articles, web-based news stories, videos, photos, and interviews. For their research, students were not only using a wide range of information sources, but they were also creating multigenre learning artifacts, such as VoiceThreads, artwork, videos, poetry, and other representations of their key learnings.

"► Tweet this! With a nod to the ever-brilliant-and-willing-to-share Kim Cofino, here is the rubric I've lately begun to use in my classroom for grading student blog posts."

► Tweet this! With a nod to the ever-brilliant-and-willing-to-share Kim Cofino, here is the rubric I've lately begun to use in my classroom for grading student blog posts.