Blogaholic: bringing it into the classroom

"My name is Reid and I'm a blogaholic".

It certainly sounds right, amongst some teachers admitting that you blog, tweet, or any use any other social media for networking purpose does feel like you confessing a giant sin. They don't really understand the power yet, but they're getting there and these types of queries below help us move them along. So I hope you'll pass this blog post onto 2-3 teachers you know to help them think about blogging in the classroom. This isn't the how to guide, there's plenty of those but one of my favourites as a beginner was Linda Yollis's.

I recently got emailed by a teacher wanting some help on how to integrate blogging into the classroom, in the interest of spreading the love I'm blogging my reply. The teacher was a blogger (not uncommon) but was unsure of how to proceed and they'd used kidblog also. This teacher's pondering was prompted by their signing up to Quadblogging. Their questions were:

Do you have ipads, or lots of computers in your class that you use?

3 favourites
from Room 1

In my classroom there is 3 desktops, BYOD (currently 10 kids) and we have a pod of laptops that come to the classroom for a week every term. We use Blogspot as a platform for blogging.  I prefer the Blogpress app when on the iPads though as it has better functionality I believe plus you can manage several blogs from the one app,

Do all your students have individual blogs?
I run both a class blog and individual blogs (none active right now, given the time of year).

How do you work blogging into your classroom programme?
Blogging into my classroom forms part of the literacy programme, when it is reading time I always include blogging. Students are directed to various blogs through their favourite blogs list, or according to our Quadblogging commitments. When it is time for writing students always have the option of publishing to the blogs. I've seen that some teachers like to have students write drafts each time to their book and have these rigorously checked, I find this onerous and prefer students to write directly to the blog, editing still takes place and the children find it more engaging. Fantastic, or otherwise, pieces of writing can still go from their writing book to the blog as you see fit. I also constantly have planned lessons & other teachable moments to learn about Digital Safety as part of Health - where blogs are often the context and we can model the learning.

My class regularly use the blogs for reading, posting and commenting before school and it can be included as part of a formal homework programme although if the blog is engaging the children will be on it at home anyway. A target for blog views or comments can be motivating also, there was much excitement when we reached 10,000 hits.

Do you QB through your class blog only? 
No, classes that have individual blogs may have these accessible also, it is entirely up to you but naturally the children love having people visiting and commenting on their own personal work.

I understand the basic premise that QB is about, but on the weeks that your class is not the focus class, do you not blog? OR is it just that you are not the focus for the comments?
My classes still blog, even though they are not the focus that week. It keeps them engaged with the practice of blogging and they generally have plenty of comments to respond to also. My class also participate in Aotearoa Quadblogging which means that I always have a blogging focus.

There are heaps of blogaholics and even some recovering ones, I hope that they'll all pass this on to 2-3 people who are unsure about blogging in the classroom.

Thinglink

My class are in the midst of ICT week and have been creating posters about biosecurity risks. As they finish these posters I have been moving them to creating a ThingLink image. Rather than explain what this is, take a look at Sara's example:
 

Sara was the first of my class to have venture onto this during the week and quickly became the class expert, both modelling what they could do as well as trouble shooting for a few students.

Previously, I had used a Thinglink image to show them some work earlier in the year, this introduced the concept and aroused some curiosity. But the following steps were used to help the children create their own.

Steps:

1. The first person who finished the poster got to be first to create on Thinglink, I would demonstrate only once to an individual and allow them to become the expert. As each child finished they were first directed to Sara's work to see what she was doing.
2. I got the class to sign in using their class twitter account to avoid further password confusion.
3. Allow them to find an image to use as the main image.
4. Explore the internet to find images, information and video to embed as tags.
5. Share to class blog/individual blog using an embed code.

I recommend that you use this tool in your class, it could be a great way to have children explore and share their understanding of many subjects especially the sciences. But I'd love to take an illustration or piece of text from a reading book and have the children use this to share their understanding. As a tool it is useful for allowing students to share their voice and it also comes as an App for the iPad/iPhone.

Engaging literacy lessons

I have my share of reluctant writers so am always looking for ways to engage them, particularly in writing activities. 

My latest attempt was using an Oliver Jeffers new release "The Day the Crayons Quit". Duncan, the main character, receives resignation letters from all of his crayons. Each page contains one letter, plenty of artwork and lots of inspiration for children's writing. It was hard to choose my favourite but who can't love the idea of a crayon complaining that it was naked...

Day 1: 

I read the book to the class to gauge engagement with the book. There was plenty of laughter and a lots of conversation about which crayon letter was their personal favourite. 

Day 2: 
Quick recall of the story from the class and I read my favourite couple of letters.
We brainstormed some of the words that we thought were repeated too often. I was searching for something to run a synonym based lesson. Amongst many words we settled on Dear (as in the beginning of a letter), Quit, Reason and Friend.
Everyone then used whatever they could to find synonyms for these 4 words & record them on a word wheel.
Shared all the words with the class. Totally impressed by words such as abdicate, discharge, associate and acquaintance.
The class then set out to create their own resignation letter to themselves, the kids have written a number of letters & the aim of the lesson was the investigation of synonyms so not much emphasis was put on the structure. I gave them a piece of A3 newsprint and let them choose their own crayon.
In 20 minutes even my most reluctant writers had produced a draft letter, with original ideas, interesting vocab and a smile on their face. SUCCESS. 

Day 3
We published the letters, produced our own envelopes, created a letterbox for the school and finished the activity.

There are plenty of other literacy lessons that could be built around this book, maybe next time.

Fantastic Flying Books of Mr Morris Lessmore

The final 2 weeks of term provided some great highlights. I had bought this book (pictured) at the end of last year and put it away for a rainy day but an idea shared through twitter got it off the shelf earlier - it has an App...

Last Friday, I read this to my class and was amazed with the level of engagement. We had predictions coming left, right & centre and they were commenting about all sorts of language & plot features. The book also contains some beautiful artwork, ranging from full colour to black & white and everything in between as the mood of the main character changes. The class had picked up on this and were getting very excited as they progressed through the book.

Once we'd finished they were uber-excited about doing some work to demonstrate their learning and this resulted in the creation of several posters including posters, a PicCollage, many pieces of writing. It was awesome to see the kids so engaged with a book but the best was yet to come...

On the last day of term I planned to show the class the Imag-N-O-tron App, we knew that it was an interactive version of the book but weren't prepared for the awesomeness that occurred. First, we visited the book's website where we saw a sample of the short movie the book inspired and then read the real book again using an iPad/projector combo to show the pages on the smart board. The App features Augmented Reality images that blew the classes mind, I'm not going to describe these images here except to say the class applauded the app at the end of the book! 

Next step is to find more books & apps of this quality for the class and I recommend that you get the app & book for yours

Chicken or the egg?

I have a little tech guru in my class, he's been leading the way with individual blogs and is always there to answer questions or provide assistance when teachers and students have questions. He has also been eager to help others with movie making.  Late last week he came to me with this lightbulb:

He is a reluctant writer and I recognised a great opportunity to improve his literacy skills.

The journey began with a tweet to get some recommended resources and we searched online to see what was available.

This recommendation was spot on, Peter has been captivated since, is even earlier to school and has been proud of his achievements. I'm finding mini-lessons to improve his writing through his HTML journey and am learning a lot myself. I'm starting to form ideas around some  ideas to leverage this and can't wait to share them.

Personalisation is so much easier with devices and the proliferation of interactive web resources, I love using these resources for engaging reluctant learners and facilitating learning. I believe its a way to engage but I know others think its the reward for hard work.

So chicken or the egg?

Beginning teachers Ignite too!

I must confess, I'm a beginning teacher.

I've been busy on Twitter as a teacher for about 4 months and felt reluctant to out myself as a BT.  I thought I should have been teaching for a few more years and I certainly feel more experienced than a BT in his 2nd year. In another life I have worked as a tutor at university and then taught at a private tertiary institute. When I walked back into a classroom in late 2010 I instantly felt like I was at home and so here I am as a 2nd year BT.

My father always told our family that there were three occupations he didn't want us to be, a lawyer, teacher or policeman. On Saturday a golfing buddy invited me to an Ignite Evening his school was hosting and I took the plunge as a 'lurker'. @MissDSciteacher spoke about the PR problem our profession faces with Novopay, Charter Schools etc and it resonated, look at my father's impression of us. But stop complaining, start acting. @MissDSciteacher started #edchatnz, I've found this so supportive and it has motivated and inspired me the last few months. Next time I go to Ignite I'm going to present because I've got plenty to talk about.

When I spoke to a couple of other teachers I follow through Twitter and told them I was a BT they were so supportive also. What am I worried about? I love my career choice, I've never been so happy (professionally speaking) and am constantly burning the proverbial candle to go to all lengths to engage, motivate and inspire my class.

This blog will be an entertaining ride with a BT who loves ICT, literacy and taking a chance.

I'm a beginning teacher and I'm proud of it.