Using+a+Blog

//These ideas are taken from a post to my blog, [|www.2teach.edublogs.org]//
 //This is a collection of ways that I have used the blog. I continue to look at other educators' blogs to find new ways to use the blog with my class.// Here is the link to my classroom blog. [|www.harju.edublogs.org] //**Ideas written in this font are recent additions to this page. We have found new ways to use our blog!

**// **Classroom Blog Ideas** I have been using a blog in my classroom since March of 2007. I have found the blog to be a wonderful communication tool and resource for parents and students. My classroom blog can be found at [|www.harju.edublogs.org]. I wanted to share some of the ways that I have used the blog with my second grade class. 1. **Student Reporters of the Day**. Near the end of the day a group of children (3-4) would write in our blog book (a spiral notebook with cool marker.) They would write about the events of the day, and then after school I would quickly type in into the blog. I would try to add a picture of the group of reporters to accompany the blog post. We did this daily for a couple weeks, until all students had a couple opportunities to be in a group. The photos were taken by our classroom photographer (student.) After the initial period, we would have the students report less frequently.

**//Update on this Idea: As I have reported on my blog, [|www.2teach.edublogs.org] I have challenged myself to have the children do more of the work on the blog (including typing the post on the computer and publishing it) and to share our blog with the world. The children are writing and posting the blog entries (with assistance from me ) and we are visiting other blogs and commenting and they are doing the same for us. You can read more about this on my blog.//**

2. **Teacher written posts**. I would write about a field trip, upcoming event or comment on the class. Often I would get student input for these posts.

3. **Caught being Wonderful**. A new favorite is writing about students that I catch in the act….of being wonderful. The children and parents love to see it in print. It is amazing to see how well they behave when I tell the children I am hoping to catch someone today.

4. **Class Videos**. The blog is a wonderful place to embedd those videos of the class. Some of our videos are more polished efforts, some are simple slideshows using Animoto, a video of a puppet show, a Voicethread, reflection video or other classroom event.

5. **Additional Pages**. The additional pages are used to showcase a particular event, to provide links or other resources for parents and students. Right now the blog has math resources, a Links page and a copy of our school Accelerated Reader Test list. I know that I will come up with or discover (by visiting other blogs) more ways to use a blog in my classroom. I have found that parents respond positively to the blog and they do read it. I remind them to subscribe to the blog so that they will get an email every time we update the blog. I also remind them in my weekly newsletter (which is emailed directly to parents each Monday) to check out a new post. This year I have had many parents comment on the blog as well. I was even lucky enough to have a twitter friend mention my blog in a tweet and had many wonderful comments on our latest video. The children were as thrilled as I was to read those responses. It was a wonderful experience.

//**6. Sharing with and Talking to the World.** We now have a list of other classroom blogs on our blog sidebar. As a class we visit these blogs and read the posts. To begin with we are commenting on these blogs as a class, but I plan to have the children write their own comments. I have found some wonderful teachers and classroom all over the world - In addition to the United States, we are reading blogs from New Zealand and Australia //.

//**7.** **Student Blogs** While I have not had the 2nd graders start their own blogs, other teachers have. Here is a link to a wiki that is collecting the blogs of students. I plan to visit some of these with my students and further explore the idea of student blogs.// http://kidblogs.wikispaces.com/