A new blogging project is brewing!
A new blogging project is brewing and I can’t wait! I met with two teachers at a nearby high school. One had called me to ask for some “Open House” help in the technology part and one had visited the Blogical Minds group last year and expressed interest in a project. That led to a meeting with the two of them and they are ready to venture into the world of blogging! I will be blogging with two classes to begin with - both are ninth grade and one class is biology and the other group is a gifted class. In the gifted class we will be centering in on environmental issues. They are known as the green team. I don’t have all the details yet but I will return next Tuesday and spend a lot of time observing that day as we begin to construct and plan. If anyone can point me to good high school examples of class blogs along with student blogs I would be most appreciative. Of course Darren’s blogs are terrific and I always point to them as a model. I hope the teachers will be interested in using scribes. We discussed the gifted class mentoring the elementary classes as the classroom teacher from last year’s project is going to be up and going soon. I will be going out to that school the end of next week to help them set it up.I have been thinking and planning. It made me think how I used to prepare for my elementary classes for the year. I always went to high school sources and materials and then adapted them for use with the elementary students. I could find more interesting items. I could get more ideas. Now I have the web to travel around and learn from others but tips from you high school experts would be great! I haven’t been able to find enough examples of student blogs so please point me in those directions if you know of some.
August 17th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
Anne, I will be watching your project develop. I am hoping to get some others on board as well. I think our school needs to utilize blogging. One of our goals for this year is to improve student writing, and there is no better way I can think of than blogging.
I greatly enjoyed your class blog from last year and look forward to what the students do this year.
August 17th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
Anne, not sure exactly what you might be going for but one of our high school teachers took Darren’s idea and changed it slightly for her purpose. Students in her science class posted their labs via video. It truly sparked an interest and change in how they learned.
http://rossoscience.edublogs.org/
Here’s a few of the kids talking about the difference it made in their learning.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8946754056617461770&hl=en-CA
August 17th, 2007 at 4:16 pm
Anne, I have been interested in a group of student bloggers from, I believe, New Zeland. Although I am not sure of their ages, I suspect they are high schoolers. You might want to take a look. There doesn’t seem to be a “master page”, but the links on this student’s page will give you a sense of what these kids are doing: http://jayden500.learnerblogs.org/
Gail
August 17th, 2007 at 4:58 pm
Hi Anne,
Your welcome to have a look at my Grade 8 blog from last year (keeping in mind that most of them were second-language learners).
http://www.ericmacknight.com/etm8/
Cheers,
Eric
August 18th, 2007 at 1:11 am
Hi Anne,
You might want to look at the many blogs coming our of the Adams County School District in Denver. They (the teachers) are called the Global Learners. Together they teach grade 1 through grade 12. They each have their own blogs but this is the hub of their PD group blog:
http://principianteglobal.blogspot.com/
Scroll down on the right hand side to find the links to the teachers individual blogs.
Cheers!
Darren
August 18th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
Carolyn,
I am so glad you will be following along and I welcome any suggestions! I agree that blogging is a great way to improve student writing! I hope you get your kids up and going!
Best,
Anne
Dean, Gail, Eric, and Darren,
Thanks ever so much for these links. They are filling my head with lots of ideas. I love seeing the student work!! I appreciate the pointers!!
Best,
Anne
August 20th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
Interesting comments. Thanks for the food for thought.