escrapbooking title

Blogs and Blogging:
A Home Run for Teaching, Learning, and Technology

homerunBlogs are the hottest new way to promote reading, writing, and thinking in all content areas and grade levels. Through this project, you’ll learn to create and integrate these “web logs” into your classroom.

Using free, simple, online tools, you and your students can add digital photos, web links, and multimedia elements to bring writing alive! If you want an easy way to promote thinking, address standards, promote information fluency, and promote collaboration, let’s blog!

Starters

Before we jump into blogging, let's explore the possibilities. Compare the contents and approaches of these blogs and podcast.

Blog Exploration

Whether you want to make a basic blog or podcasts, vodcasts, or scrapblogs, this is the place to get started.

Try It!
Explore the possibilities. Compare the contents of at least five different blogs.

Students and Teachers

Primary -
Molecules in Motion (Kindergarten)
Mrs. Bradley's Class (Kindergarten)
Mrs. Atwood's First Grade Blog
Author Visit at Elementary (Grade 1)
Mrs. Corron's First Grade
Awesome Readers and Writers (Grade 2)
The Write Weblog
The Dream Factory Student Work
Indiana Mysteries (K-6)
Mighty Writers
Lewis Elementary School (K-5)
Sandaig Primary Schools
Conners Emerson School
Duck Diaries
Room 208 - video and audio
Grand View Library Blog

Intermediate -
A Really Different Place
5th Grade Writing
A Great Day's Blogging 5LH
Blog Write
FYI (5)
In My Opinion... (5)
Mrs. Polak's 4/6 ILA Class - book reviews
Mrs. W (5)
Mrs. Watt's Fourth Grade (4)
Ms. Kreul's Class Blog (4)
Room 132 Sixth Grade
Room 208 and Room 209 Student Poetry
Room 507 All Stars (5)
Super Students' Blog (5)
Tell the Raven (4)

Middle -
Mabry Middle School, (blogs)
Excellence and Imagination - social studies

Mabry Library Media Center
The Library - Washington Middle School
Pacific MS Library BookBlog

High -
High School Pre-Cal (Pre-Cal 20S, PreCal 30S, Applied Math 40S, Calculus 45S, Pre-Cal 40S)
The Secret Life of Bees
Uniform Discussion - student blog
Honors Biology
News from Croatan High School - questions of the day
Mrs. C's Senior English Blogs
The Reading Room at NMH Library
ResearchLogTemplate

University -
SLMS Bridging Theory and Practice

Others
By Young People - Mexico and Me 3
Educator - Bernie Dodge's One-Trick CyberPony, CafeTeach
General - Wired Blogs, Instapundit, 50 Popular Science Blogs
Collaborative - Daffodil Delight, Digging into Michigan's Past
Personal - Personal Inquiry Blog, Matrix Maker Personal Inquiry, Sleep Inquiry, Blogging About Palms
Single Event - Technology Blackout Day, Young Hoosier Book Award

Podcasting
Bobby Bucket Show! Bucket of Books
Mr. Gates's 2nd Grade Class Podcasts
WillowWeb
First Grade Huckleberry Room (1) - audiobook
First Grade Banyan Room (1) - audiobook
First Grade Maple Room (1) - audiobook
Teen Podcasters Network

Librarian Blogs
Alice in InfoLand
Blue Skunk
Gargoyles Loose in the Library
Informancy
Joyce Valenza

Library Blogs
AASL Blog
Blogging Libraries Wiki
Blogs Without a Library
Library Weblogs
Library Blogs

Educational Technology
Anne Davis
Bernie Dodge
Will Richardson
David Warlick

Practice Blog
High Tech

General Blogs
50 Popular Science Blogs

Blog Commenting

Try It!
Let's comment on a blog!
Go to Ecollaborate. This blog was created in Blogspot. Comment on one of the postings.
Brainstorm ways of engaging learners in blogs.
Brainstorm guidelines for student activties.

Compare the blog spot blog with one created with edublogs at Eduscapes Edublog.

Guidelines for Student Bloggers

Blog Creation

Try It!
Let's create a blog.

Go to Blogger. If you already have a gmail account, you can use this. If not, it will create a Google account for you automatically. Follow the directions to create a blog.

Or, go to Edublogs. Choose Teacher. Follow the directions to create a blog. You will receive a password through email so you can get back in later. When you come in later, enter your password at the top of the screen. It will also create a wikispaces wiki for you.

Or, create a Scrapblog. This is a more visual blog tool. Check out Lamb's Scrapblog and Escrapbooking Ideas and NCCE.

Or, check out the HyperComics Blog for creating online comics or Splashblog for Treo (example)

Educational Blog Services

Other blog services and options to consider:

Blog Integration

Try It!
Explore RSS feeds using bloglines. Check out my eduscapes bloglines.

Think about assignments that could be made using existing blog resources.

Try It!
If you want to try creating a podcast. Use Audacity and Slapcast. With Slapcast you can create 3 free podcast recordings or upload three recordings. See a sample at Slapcast Eduscapes.
RSS feed
http://slapcast.com/rss/eduscapes/index.xml
Website
http://slapcast.com/users/eduscapes

For more information about using blogs as learning spaces in the classroom, go to my High Tech Learning: Blog section. This area also contains sections on audio and video sharing as well as RSS.

Also, read Annette and Larry's articles on blogging in School Library Media Activities Monthly and Teacher Librarian.

The Workshop Resources

Use the following pages at this website to learn more:

Special Note: Blogging is part of the "real world." As such, there's a chance you might find a link on this page offensive. This site is intended to provide insights for teachers and librarians into the world of blogging. It's not intended for young children.

 
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