How and Why Teachers Should Blog

In my readings today, I came across an additional source about why teachers should blog as well as why they should have their students blogging. I posted the article on Twitter, and given it attracted "favorites" and "retweets," thought I should share the information here. Among the reasons listed for teachers to introduce their students to blogging are these, in paraphrased format:

1) Encourage Collaboration Among Students

2) Teach Students How to Write Blogging Comments to Learn How to Give Feedback

This point reminded me of a video students in Linda Yollis created about how to write good blogging comments, which I am embedding here--a reminder for teachers when they respond to blog posts and a video to use with students once they are introduced to blogging.



 
3) Provide Evidence of Student Achievement

4) Encourage Students to Write and Gain Practice with Writing

To access the article, click on the word cloud above, which I found in the article, "How (And Why) Teachers Should Blog." Do you truly believe teachers should blog and that they should teach blogging principles to their students?

Additionally, this morning I came across an excellent blog post written by Lynn Hilt, a former K-6 elementary school principal and now the instructional technology coach for her school district. Click on the image to access the post:

Lynn offers links to a variety of resources in the post. Consider checking some of these out.

Will Chamberlain, an elementary school teacher maintains the blog, Comments4Kids, which is an excellent way for teachers and their students to respond to students who are blogging and to make global connections.

So, are you convinced teachers and students should be blogging?

And, last did you know October is Connected Educators' Month? No better way to connect than finding teachers who want to do cross-class blogging projects.

Author Blogs: Visit Kate Messner's Blog to Learn More

Kate Messner, children's book author, has an excellent blog, and included on it as a Page to find other authors' blogs. 

Here's a quick screen capture of the authors' blogs she offers, with links to them, but you need to visit her page to use the links virtually to get to the blogs.

While, you're on her site, look around. She offers a variety of information for young readers and encourages children to read and write. Here's a screen capture of the pages on her blog showing she has pages for Books, Blog, Kids, Writers, Speaking, Appearances, and About Me. If you set up a classroom blog, you might want to create a page to help your own students find authors' blogs online.

Perhaps seeing that authors have blogs will encourage your students to want to have a full class blog or to create their own individual blog, or join a class blog organized with a platform like KidBlog.

In addition to Kate's blog, she also can be found in these places:

Twitter

Facebook

Memorble Quotes to Spark Discussion, Writing, and Other Activites

Quotes often get the juices flowing. These memorable quotes from Oscar-winning filmmaker Hayo Miyazaki might be ones you can use with your students. The graphics alone accompanying the quotes are also worth showing students to stimulate classroom activities.

Although I have embedded the slides here, you can also open the presentation on SlideShare, where I found them, and show them that way, or embed them in your own class blog or website.

Let me know if you would use any or all of these slides with students.

To advance through the slide show, click the arrows, and also feel free to open the show on Slide Show if it's easier for you to view them there.

13 Memorable Quotes from Hayao Miyazaki Films

13 Memorable Quotes from Hayao Miyazaki Films by @charitytemple from Charity Temple

Digital Writing Workshop Companion Site

If you haven't looked around the companion website to Troy Hicks's The Digital Writing Workshop, here's a link to access the site:

Digital Writing Workshop Wiki

On the site, you'll find a host of links to access information. There are chapter-by-chapter links as well as links to videos and audio resources. Here is snapshot of part of the homepage of the wiki.

Take a few minutes now to explore the site, and let us know what you recommend to others.

Here's a VoiceThread from the site. Bill Gaskin opens each slide, and his colleagues continue the discussion.  Each slide corresponds to another chapter in the book.


 


Suggestion: bookmark the wiki site, and return to it for specific resources. There is plenty to explore.

Doodlecast App for Promoting Literacy

Today, I came across a tweet from a kindergarten teacher, Matt Gomez, whom I follow on Twitter that caught my attention, particularly the words "reading," "writing," and "documenting." Knowing, Mr. Gomez maintains a resourceful blog (My Hullabaloo), I clicked on the link in the tweet, which brought me to his post.

The post explains how he uses the Doodlecast Pro app with his kindergarteners to document their skills as readers and writers.  Mr. Gomez granted permission to use videos of his students using the app, but I encourage you to go directly to his blog post, Documenting Reading and Writing with Doodlecast App for detailed information. While you're at his site, look around. You'll find a host of ideas related to digital literacies, information literacies, and reading and writing. The first video below documents a student reading, and the second, a student writing.

Reading

Writing and Journaling

Here is a screenshot from the Doodlecast page at the Apple Store to help you visualize some of the organizational options. One option allows for uploading to YouTube, a feature that facilitates the sharing of students' accomplishments. 

Image: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/doodlecast-pro/id469486202?mt=8

 Note that although Mr. Gomez uses the pro version, there is a free version with more limited options, but a good choice if you want to try the app for yourself.

What are some apps or websites you use to promote students' literacies skills?  What are your thoughts on how Mr. Gomez uses Doodlecast with his students?

The Writing Process

Stacy, a 4th grade teacher, in the West Hartford Cohort created this Animoto on the Writing Process as a way to introduce her elementary students to the writing process: "The Writing Process." 
The Animoto video is a helpful way to get discussion going about the research process. Once students view the video, a teacher can then lead them through a discussion of how what they watched will apply to their upcoming project. Look at the video, and then think of ways in which you can use Animoto to introduce an upcoming project in your class. Share your ideas by leaving a comment.

Click on the picture or the hyperlink below it to access the video at the Animoto site.

The Writing Process

Quick, Effective Literacy Activity

Six-Word Memoirs is an easy activity to implement in the classroom. This activity could be done with students of any age and with any materials, including paper and pencil. However, it would also be fun to do it with computer tools and post some of the memories online. It works like this:

• Think of 6 words who define you or tell your life story--form a 6-word sentence--how you arrange the words helps
• Find an image to go along with the sentence

Students can find the picture that represents them first and then write the sentence, or do the activity in reverse. Most of all, figure out a way for students to share these memoirs with one another and others. 

Here is some information about the project, which includes images of 6-word memoirs. 

Illustrated Six-Word Memoirs by Students from Grade School to Grad School

Here is a video explaining the concept of the 6-week memoir, a technique derived from writer Ernest Hemingway. The video contains tips for creating the memoirs. 

Here is an example of a series of 6-word memoirs from a high school students who gathered theirs into a video and posted the video on YouTube.

Although simple, the activity can create a fun, interactive, and reflective learning environment.

Have you tried this activity in your classroom? If so, how did it go? If you have not, would you consider it, and how would you proceed to implement it? How would you have students share--among themselves, or in a more public way, like the video above? Regardless of the age level you teach, keep in mind this activity can be adapted to fit the learners' literacy skills.

Web Writing Tools for Fun and Exploration

In this Alive in Five video, "Web Writing for Fun," we learn of three web writing tools: Fodey, Figment, and MixBook. These tools vary in their functionality. Listen and watch the video, and if you check any of the sites, let us know what you think.

 

Alive in Five has numerous videos explaining how and why to use specific Web 2.0 tools. For instance, here are links to some:
Animoto
Wallwisher
PollEverywhere
Toodoo

Once you are on YouTube looking at any of the Alive in Five video, you'll find more videos in the series.  Breeze around, and let us know which of the videos you recommend.