Class Blogs: Patterson's Pack 1st Grade Blogging in Virgina...How great is that!

Here is a blog and a posting the teacher has posted to their blog that the students completed as a class. It looks as if the students created this story together where they each drew a picture and added their own sentence or two about the story, which was then turned into a class book. She posted them reading their sentences on youtube where she recored them. It's amazing how little can be done to involve students. I'm still amazed how this 1st grade class is blogging. I chose this blog because I really wanted to see if there were actually Kindergarten or 1st grade students blogging. The teacher has many links to view and she also uses wikispaces to post students' homework and notices to parents. This is a great way to involve parents as well when you post things to the blog and wiki as well as send notes home. The students aren't posting thing themselves, yet; but they write and complete things and she posts their activities for them. This teacher uses her blog mainly for herself and for the parents to keep watch on to help their children practice activities and reminders. She has this blog set up to take you to many links and sites that she has designed and it is so awesome. I love this blog as well. I'm so amazed with a lot of these blogs because I'm new to blogging and there is so much that it allows you to do with your students and class as a teacher and personally. Here is the link to the blog and a wonderful posting to the story her students made. I hope you like it as much as I did!

http://mrspatterson.edublogs.org/

Class Blogs: Classroom Book Blog (5th Grade)

Here is a blog where it doesn't really grab your attention with the colors or design but it's designed for posting about different books read by the students and even the teacher, a book report blog. I chose this blog because I was looking for a way to keep 5th grade students interested in the class so this was one I ran across being that reading is a major part of the education world. The blog has links with the different genres/categories of reading where you may find different overview postings of the books the students in the class have read.  There hasn't been any postings to the blog since 2009 so I don't know what's going on now with this class. I don't like that the students don't have their own page linked to them where they could just go in and post under their tagged name but it's a plain and simple blog for reading but being an elementary major, I think reading should be fun, interesting and exciting. I have posted the link to the blog and you may check it out if you like and leave your comment on this blog. Maybe you see some things I don't see.

http://bookreport.edublogs.org/

Class Blogs: 2M Gems from Queensland, Australia (6/7 year olds)

Here is a blog that's very catchy and I chose this blog because I wanted to find out some things that teachers and students do from Austrailia, mainly a different country. I like and I dislike this blog. First I'll tell you why I dislike this blog and it's only a simple reason. I dislike this blog because there are postings that allow you to listen to it but it only reads to you what is written on the blog post but I guess this is good because it's set up this way so that the students are able to understand and listen to what is written being that they're in 2nd grade. This helps them to understand what they're teacher has posted for them to comment to. After viewing this blog, I see now that it's possible to use blogging with 2nd grade students when I thought that may be too much for them to possibly grasp. In this blog I like how the teacher was at a conference and bought something to bring to the class and posted the picture asking the students what they thought it would be used for and they had to comment with their thoughts. With this 2nd grade blog, the teacher has tabs and links where their words for each week is posted, the students have their own "blogfolios", and the class has two other blogs (reading and writing). The teacher uses their writing blog for the students to post their drafts for writing where spelling, grammer and punctuation may not matter at the moment but she corrects them later and not on the blog. The blog isused so that we, viewers will see their improvement as time passes. The teacher also posts their routines to remember and important dates to remember. The students are also able to post links for their teacher to read and comment for example where they wished him/her a happy birthday. I have bookmarked this blog because I love it so much and will definitely be using it for ideas with my future classroom. I really love how they operate in Australia!

http://2mgems.blogspot.com/

Class Blogs: Fourth Graders Adventure

I love this blog of these fourth grade students somewhere in our country. From viewing this blog and watching several of their videos, I have learned that elementary school students can use blogs for homework posting and viewing of their assignments as well as creating their very own blogs. I chose this blog after going through a  list and saw 4th grade. I'm interesting in every grade labeled under elementary and all about finding ways to have an exciting and interesting yet fun classroom. Maybe blogging for PreK-2nd grade students wouldn't be soo good but would be quite and experience but I would definitely try it for 4th and 5th grade after viewing this blog and some of the students in this class' blog. I love the idea of my students having their own blogs. Check out this blog at the link below. It gives really cool ideas for an elementary classroom.
http://missblessings.edublogs.org/

Lutherville iLab: A PreK-5 Class Blog dealing with Science

I'm not very sure exactly what an iLab is but I'm sure it relates to a regular computer lab with all types of technology equipment. I found this blog of this school to be very interesting and helpful because it showed how each grade level did many activities in the lab and related science with all other subjects. This blog also has tabs to go to the pages of the different grade levels being that this is a PreK-5th grade blog and tabs for special programs or clubs at their school. I chose this blog very randomly among the others and mainly because it dealt with PreK-5th grade being that I'm an Early Childhood/Elementary Education major. This blog helps me to understand that it is possible to use blogs with my elementary students such as some of the things I liked that was done on this blog like: the voice thread with the students speaking about how they were recycling in the pictures, the morning announcement about their trout, discussions and voice threads about their trips to Petco and their accomplishments, etc. I also like how this blog has been designed and noted of how to make your comments and how the students love to see comments about the things they've done so this helps me to want and plan to create a blog with my class in the things that we do so that relatives, classmates, teachers and other students can comment on their accomplishments. Overall, I really love this blog mainly because it helps me to add to what I would like to include into my classrooml.

http://luthervilleilab.edublogs.org/

Story Something...Read and explore interactive stories with your children

Story Something is a Web 2.0 tool designed to read and explore interactive stories with your children. This tool would be great to use with beginning readers as well as young children around the age of 2-3 or even babies. With this tool, parents/teachers/grandparents, etc. can personalize these interactive stories with the names of their children or students and allow them to read it themselves or be read to them. I would use this tool in my classroom during a whole group discussion or warm-up which will allow me to incorporate some of my students' name. I would also use this tool with my nieces and nephew being that they enjoy reading. I think this tool would work a little better if it would read the story to the students or children interactively so that they could be involved a more and would make it fun to explore. Signing up for this tool is free. It's a fun tool and you should try it out with your children or students. I know I will be using it with my nieces and nephew!

http://www.storysomething.com/

Testing is NOT Teaching!

This video shows us as teachers as well as parents that our children and students deserve the individual expectations from us to be better and extrodinary producers. Do our students/children know that they are the most important evaluator when it comes to their learning and education? What can we do as educators and parents to movitate our children to listen differently today? Please post a comment.

Open a Back Channel

A back channeling tool would work great for my classroom discussions especially for those students who doesn't feel comfortable speaking and sharing during or in class. I would use this tool with my 3rd - 5th grade students twice a week as part of our lessons where specific questions will be posed for them to respond to and watching a video or presentations made by the students in which each student will respond to the prompts and videos.

In my classroom, we would try Twitter as a beginner during the beginning of the year being that students are very familiar with this social network and this would be done with my 4th and 5th grade students. I would only allow my students to use it for classroom assignments and purposes. My students would respond to a prompt given in class so that each student participates. We would also use Twitter for homework assignments where we respond to particular videos provided.

Most of our back channeling will be done in class as incorporation of technology with most of our subjects or subject that I may teach if the school allows us access to this site. If we're not able to use Twitter then my first option would be to use edmodo.com, Chatzy.com or other private chat rooms to incorporate into the lessons and classroom to better the students' learning as well as making the class enjoyable!