A Summer Face-Lift for My Classroom Blog - Part 1

I was doing some web surfing and came to a spot where teachers were sharing their classroom blogs and sharing ways to improve them. Well, that made me what to update my much neglected classroom blog. I can't believe that I haven't posted anything since March. I guess that what happens when I put more time and energy into my students' blogs, my gets neglected.

Well, now that I'm on summer vacation and I'm reflecting on how best to keep my blog a resource that my students will want to keep coming back to. I had an online friend suggest adding the Wonderopolis widget to our classroom blog, so I did. I went here to get the HTML code from Wonderopolis and then went into the design mode for my blog. On the right side I clicked on add a widget and selected the HTML - Java script one from the options that opened. I named the widget, pasted the code in that I had copied and clicked on save. When I clicked on View Blog, I saw that it was too big to display properly in the right sidebar. So I went back into design and clicked on the Wonderopolis widget and changed the width and height in the code. I set the width for 200 and the height for 400 and saved the changes. When I viewed the blog this time it looked great in the sidebar.

I have a feeling that I will be making more updates to the look of my blog, but I feel a late afternoon nap coming on.

Are you giving your classroom blog a face-lift this summer? Share in the comments any other suggestions you might have to improve my classroom blog. 

They're Back - Decorah Eagle Cam

I learn many things from my PLN members, either on Twitter and from their blog posts. I share many of these "gems" with others at my school, but most of them don't cause much of a stir. Well, one of my discovered "gems" caused quite a stir last year in our school. The eagle cam!

I learned about the eagle cam from this post by Nancy Carroll and I was hooked the first time I logged on. I spent much of that weekend checking in on the eagles' nest and couldn't wait to share this discovery at school on Monday You can read about how we used the eagle cam and some of the things we learned last year in this post.

I have checked in a couple of times over the last several weeks hoping that the eagles had returned. They have and I'm excited to begin watching this drama unfold for us again this year. We missed the egg laying, but we will be able to experience all of the eggs hatching this year. This is such a great learning experience. I hope you and your students will be among those that follow this adventure.

What can you learn from watching the eagle cam? Do you know of any other cams like this?

Day 1 of Mardi Gras Skype Calls

There was a definite buzz in the air today in HR222. Purple, green, and gold was everywhere you looked. The back of the classroom looked like an annex for Beads by the Dozen. Today was going to be a great day of collaboration and communication for us. We had five Skype calls planned back to back from 8:45 until 10:30. The students had researched, created Glogsters, practiced their parts, and learned how to properly do a "second line" all in preparation for today's Mardi Gras Skype calls. They were now the "experts" who were going to educate other classrooms around the country about Mardi Gras.

Our first call was with Mrs. Grayson's 4th grade in Virginia. We loved the fact that Mrs. Grayson donned a wonderful Mardi Gras themed hat for the call. Her students and mine backchanneled on an Skype Collaboration group I had set up in Edmodo during the call. The students in Virginia learned about Mardi Gras through both the presentation done via Skype and by viewing the Glogsters my students had embedded into the Edmodo group. What a great way to start a day of learning.

We then traveled virtually to Minnesota, and connected with Mr. Kruger's 3rd graders. Unfortunately there were some technically difficulties with this Skype connection, but Mr. Kruger assured me through Twitter that our presentation sparked a lot of follow up conversation among his students. We wrapped up this call with our closing second line, and we know this class in Minnesota learned a lot about Mardi Gras when they answered our verbal quiz questions with flying colors. Check out Mr. Kruger's post about the call.                                                                      

Mrs. Mercier's 3rd grade class in Connecticut was not able to connect with us today due to a scheduling conflict. We hope to be able to connect with them at some date in the future. Ah, the life of an elementary school teacher. We have to remain flexible because schedules can change quickly. During the time we would have been Skyping with Mrs; Mercier's class, my students took their social studies test.

Our next connection was with Mrs. Seibel's 4th grade class in Kansas. My students' level of confidence had greatly increased from the first call, and they spoke with more assured voices during this call. We showed them various trinkets that are prized "catches" from different Mardi Gras krewes - a play sword, a Mardi Gras football, and a prized Zulu coconut.

We rounded out our Skype collaboration with Mrs. Yollis' 3rd graders in California. We were greeted by Mrs. Yollis and one of her students who was wearing a Mardi Gras mask. We had to disconnect and place the call a couple of times before we had a stable connection. Mrs. Yollis' students are Skype experts and have various jobs they perform during Skype calls. Read about the Mardi Gras Skype Call from their perspective on her blog here.

Her students also had a few questions they were dying to ask us, so we did a Q&A about non-Mardi Gras things at the end of our presentation. One of her students wanted to know if my students had ever seen an alligator up close and personal. Imagine his excitement when Raegan told him that she went alligator hunting with her grandpa and caught a 12 foot gator. She also shared that she is related to one of the featured people on The History Channel series "Swamp People". Another question was about our Hurricane Katrina experience. Mrs. Yollis' students learned that every one of my students had to evacuate the city during the storm and that at least three of them were gone for more than two years before they returned.

(Lesson learned - take a picture of the Skype call on the computer screen instead of the imagine displayed on the Promethean board. While what we saw during the calls was very clear, the photos leave a lot to be desired.)

So are you ready to let the good times roll? What celebration is unique to your area?

Let the Good Times Roll

I'm so excited to announce that my 4th graders with be sharing their Mardi Gras expertise with at least 14 other classes in the United States and Canada. While my students have been busy doing research, writing, creating Glogsters, writing blog posts, and gathering props to share during our Skype calls, I've been busy getting our Skype call schedule set.

My part was pretty easy. First I decided which days we could Skype. Then I created a Google doc to have others sign up, and tweeted about it on Twitter.

Viola, in less than 24 hours we had 14 eager participants. My students will also be back channeling on our Skype Collaboration group in Edmodo. If the other class wants to join in on that activity, I will share the code to join the group with them.

I will be adding updates to our blog as this awesome activity unfolds. So stay tuned.

Skype Call with Ramona and Beezus Star, Joey King

Today we had a really special guest Skype into our 4th period math class. Joey King, the star of the Disney movie Ramona and Beezus Skyped with us. She was on the set of her new movie, Oz, The Beginning in Detriot, Michigan and she Skyped us from her trailer while she was on a break.

I had seen a tweet at the end of September telling teachers that they could sign up to get a celebrity to Skype into their classroom during October to talk about bullying. I signed up and after several emails between myself and Jeff Rivera, the coordinator of this project, we were fortunate enough to schedule Joey for our Skype call.

My students were thrilled and did a fantastic job of being a great audience and asked Joey lots of good questions. Below is a small part of the half hour Skype call. Joey King is so adorable and my students learned from her how to deal with bullies. Thanks, Joey.

We Hosted a Blog Commenting Party

This past Wednesday from 3:30-6:00 after school, my students and I held a Blog Commenting Party. What is that you might ask? Well let me explain what it is and how it came about.

Last year for the first time I had my fourth graders blogging using kidblog.org. This is something I have wanted to do for a couple of years and finally felt I had found the right platform for us to use since the students don't need email addresses and everything is moderated through a teacher dashboard.

Since I teach math and social studies, not English, I had to find a way to use blogging with my students. I decided they would use their blogs as reflective learning journals. I wanted them to post about once a week, telling about something they learned in our classes. I don't grade their posts, but we set up blogging guidelines. It was agreed upon that proper English would be used when they posted. Yes, I do make small corrections to their spelling and punctuation before I make their posts "live", but it was understood that I would send back posts that didn't make sense or didn't contain enough information for the reader to understand what they were talking about.

I learned about using the hashtag #comments4kids to generate over 1,800 comments for my students' blogs last year. And while that was very exciting, I was disappointed that the parents were not commenting on their kids' blogs. As I reflected on the year of blogging over the summer I decided to try and get more parents involved this year.

That is when the Blog Commenting Party idea was hatched. I realized that maybe the parents didn't really know how to comment. So I decided to work on fixing that this year.

This year we began blogging during the first week of school by doing a paper blogging activity. My students are writing about their passions as well as using their blogs as reflective learning journals. My students and I learned how to leave a quality comment by viewing a video from Linda Yollis. She had her third graders make an excellent video that teaches others how to comment. My students created our own version of her video to share with our parents. I put together a flyer to send home to the parents inviting them to our party. We asked everyone who came to bring a snack or something to drink.

I was excited that 12 parents came and so did our principal, Brenda Breithaupt. In fact she was our official photographer. (Thank you, Brenda.)

First we showed them our video. Then I explained the safety features of the kidblog.org platform. The parents were visibly relieved when I told them that I moderate everything - posts and comments have to be approved by me before they appear on our blogs. I also showed them TweeetDeck on our interactive white board and explained the #comments4kids column. Next, we showed them our paper blogs that were on the bulletin board and I explained the lesson I taught to introduce blogging to my students. Then I shared my classroom blog with them and showed them the posts and comments I have gotten since school started. Finally the kids got out the netbooks and shared their blogs with their parents. You can view our blogs here and here.

As I circulated around the room, I loved the comments I was hearing.
"Son, I didn't know you knew how to do this."
"Wow, you know how to add a picture to your post!"
"I didn't know you remembered that. You were so little when that happened."
"You're going to have to show me how to do this. Maybe I'll start a blog."

There was so much pride flowing from both the parents and the students. My heart was singing. The parents read the posts and the kids showed them how to add comments.

I was supposed to Skype in our best commenter, JoAnn Jacobs from Hawaii. JoAnn leaves such great comments on all of our blogs and we wanted to personally thank her, but I totally messed up that one. We didn't connect with her because I got confused with the time zones. I did Skype with Jodi Judd in California for a few minutes to show the parents how a Skype call works.

As the party was winding down, I had several conversations with different parents about how much I love learning about my students' passions by reading their blogs. Several parents said they had learned something new about their child by reading their blogs too.

Needless to say, I left school that day like I was walking on a cloud. Our Blog Commenting Party had been a great success. How do you encourage parents to comment on your students' blogs? What else do you think I should add to the list of activities for our next party?

Our Video - How to Leave a Comment

We made this video to teach our parents how to leave a quality comment when they visit our blogs. We are hosting a Blog Commenting Party for our parents today after school. We will show them this movie and then help them get on our blogs to leave us comments.