We’re finally blogging! We’ve gone from paper blogging to the real deal! Yesterday we logged in and went step-by-step, going through the different components of a blog post in Edublogs. I wanted them to slowly learn the procedures that they should follow every time they post to the class blog. Starting this week they’ll be blogging in their […]
Teaching
Mastering student blogging with Paper blogging
I will be the first to admit that paper blogging was not in any way my original idea. I actually saw the idea from several posts: Paper Blogs: A Lesson in Commenting on Student Blogs Learning to Blog Using Paper Blogging Lesson Plan- Writing Making Paper Blogs to Prepare for the Online Experience I had searched […]
How students can be collaborative with Google Docs
How to use Google Docs in your class tomorrow (using an iPad or computer) During the past few years I’ve had the chance to try out Google Docs as a collaborative tool with my students. Group work is a breeze when everyone can work together simultaneously! Google Docs isn’t always perfect: If a student starts […]
First steps and considerations with student blogging
I mentioned before that a few years back I incorporated student blogging and created a series of lessons. I had blogging, commenting, and copyright use lessons, however I revisited those and found them to be stale. So this time around I searched for new material that I could utilize to spruce up those lessons. There are […]
Why I’m diving into student blogging
These past few weeks I’ve been reading some game-changing posts by George Couros. I’m particularly drawn to his posts about why educators and administrators should blog, and about having students create digital portfolios via blogs. Both of these ideas resonate with me, particularly the part about students having a voice for an authentic audience, and using […]
Switching to standards-based grading to improve student outcomes
My standards-based grading journey Standards-based grading has been a part of my educational journey, and I’m working on refining it. A few years ago in my early foray into English Language Arts, I attempted this on a whim but quickly became overwhelmed with it. It seemed far too labor-intensive in terms of grading, and I’m […]
Fostering collaboration and teamwork into your curriculum
This year I want to work on building more engagement into my curriculum, while also fostering teamwork and collaboration. I’m not sure why it took me 13 years to “think” of this! To facilitate this, I’m going to test it out on Fridays. For this first official Friday, I decided to do a team-building exercise […]
A Gallery Walk to test your Personality
As I mentioned in my last post, I’m looping with my students from 7th to 8th grade. One of the greatest benefits of doing this is that I get to kick-start our curriculum right away by getting up and moving for a gallery walk. After some discussion with last year’s 8th grade teachers, my PLC […]
