Great Classroom Blogs

I am putting together a presentation for my school on why teachers should consider blogging. As part of my presentation, I wish to provide some examples of great classroom blogs. May I please get some links from teachers so that I can use your blogs as examples of what great sites, and why my peers should consider utilizing blogs? I am sure other teachers visiting this discussion would like to see your sites, as well. Thank you!

Tags: Blogging

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Permalink Reply by Lynn Merrell on January 29, 2010 at 9:11pm

I use NING with my Grades 7, 8 and 9 special needs students for both language arts and science. I use the forum section the most. It helps them focus on issues in novels, science concepts, etc. I have them view pictures and videos online and write paragraphs on topics I assign or answer science questions. The magic is that only they can update their writing so it really helps them self-edit. The fact that their peers can see their writing helps motivate them to do their best. It also makes it easier to mark and help them improve. Students like putting on pictures and making the network their own. I don't use the blog section much, mostly the forum, pictures, videos, and chat. Due to FIOP and Net safety I won't show it to you, but you can check NING out and make your own free NING network at:

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Permalink Reply by pj galien on February 2, 2010 at 7:13pm

Hi. Here is a post on my blog that has a link to an article that Wendy Bowcher and I wrote on blogging with language students. http://pjgalien.wordpress.com/2010/01/30/using-blogs-in-eslefl-teac...

Also, this post on my blog has a link to the blog I used with my writing students. http://pjgalien.wordpress.com/2008/10/29/using-blogs-with-students/

I hope this helps a little. My students were very positive about this activity.

Patricia Galien

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on February 2, 2010 at 7:38pm

We do have a great blog. We've been writing at A Really Different Place for 4 years. The students are in or have been in my gifted ed center --now grades 4-8. We've had 94,000 unique visits in the four years, that's a heck of a lot of reading, writing, thinking, reflecting and commenting. Start with Recent Posts to see who's writing about what. N

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Permalink Reply by Jeffrey Thomas on February 3, 2010 at 4:38am

Nancy,

I know this is a bit off topic but I think your blog is an outstanding example of what is possible in education today. I like the fact that all the student blogs are contained within the main blog. I was wondering how you accomplished this--who hosts it, permissions--can students only edit their own blog, etc. If you have posted instructions elsewhere I would be very interested in your methodology. Thanks so much!

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on February 3, 2010 at 6:40am

Jeff, the blog is done with Drupal and I think the learning curve is higher than what most newbies want. I had the parent of a former student do it for me, I bought the domain name and he serves it privately. I am able to easily administer it-adding new blogs, editing and so on. Yes, each student and edit or delete his/her own blog and comments. It is easy to set up exactly what you want as far as permissions, content, etc. Let me know if you want me to put you in touch with the guy who maintains our blog, I'm sure he'd answer any questions you might have.

Each student has written permission from parents and we start blogging in 4th grade. I teach them how to blog, using Andrew Church's rubric and lay out the expectations.

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Permalink Reply by Jeffrey Thomas on February 3, 2010 at 7:13am

Thanks Nancy--I figured that it had to be customized since it is pretty much perfect. Hopefully, there will be a day that the average educator can do this or at least have the resources made available to them to accomplish the same thing. Great job!

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Permalink Reply by Larry Sandberg on May 18, 2010 at 3:02am

Jeff

Have you checked this one - http://theteachingpalette.com/blog/? That's a very popular blog, my apologies if someone has mentioned it before. And http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=1337 as well.

I just happened to stumble upon this today- http://hoodamathblog.com/ as we have a couple of Maths apps for Kids.

Check them out.

Cheers

LS

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Permalink Reply by Kathleen Johnson on February 2, 2010 at 9:32pm

As the librarian at Seattle Academy, I have been helping James Watson, one of our English Teachers, with his podcasting trimester. The kids have been so motivated and engaged! I invited James to guest blog at my library blog and he accepted. You can read his description of the course, and hear three podcasts here:

http://saaslibrary.wordpress.com/2010/01/28/using-all-of-our-senses/

Notice who commented on the blog post. We were thrilled.
Kathy Johnson

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Permalink Reply by Jessica Millan on May 10, 2010 at 8:54pm

I made a blog for my tech 422 class. We were asked to do a blog for our portfolio to show our work and how we incorporated technology into the classroom. I am studying to be an elementary teacher and blogging was very beneficial for our classroom. My professor had a blog and made it easy to get access and information for our projects. http://j3551c4ed422.blogspot.com/

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Permalink Reply by Duncan Exton on May 17, 2010 at 8:39pm

My classroom has a classroom blog with lots of content from students and whats happening. The students have individual blogs and I have created a separate site that presents questions every week as a focus for the individual student blogs.
It is called Thinkers of the World Unite. Each week a question is presented to the students in the form of a philosophical idea with a link to video, images or a discussion point. I would love others classrooms to become involved in this site as a global thinking community.

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Permalink Reply by Lea Hansen on December 15, 2010 at 7:40pm

I'm not so presumptuous to assume my classroom blog is "great"....I thought I'd share it nonetheless. My focus is History, Political Science, Psychology, Literature, and Art.

My blog started out as a place to interact with students both in school and out of school. Unfortunately, in the new district where I teach, blogger is blocked. I still post lessons, activities, and resources. Periodically other teachers post comments.

I started the blog in 2007. I started keeping track of "hits" in June, 2008. The blog has over 22,000 hits.

http://hansengeorge.blogspot.com