Journal Entries

Blog Basics

Blogs Basics is set up in six, easily found sections that explain everything you need to know about blogs from where to begin to copyrighting. When you’re starting a blog it’s important to decide what your blog will be about and just how much time you want to devote to your blog. You want to have a topic that’s not only broad, so you can write about it frequently, but it also needs to interest you.

Classroom blogs are a great way to let your students’ parents know what’s going on in the classroom, as well as, being a place for other teachers to learn from your experiences as a teacher and learner. Although updating a blog may be time consuming, I think this is a great way to stay connected to my students’ parents.

Using Blogs in the Classroom

Having students blog in the classroom is a great way to empower them. Blogging can help them build confidence in themselves and their writing. Since technology plays such an important role in our world today, it’s important that we give students the opportunity to express their thoughts in a way that’s relevant to our society. There are many sites available for teachers to create their own classroom blog that their students can contribute to, or make their own.

I think having students blog is such an incredible idea! It’s a great way to get kids excited about writing. I often struggle with motivating my students to work on their writing, so introducing blogging in my classroom might help to spark their interest.

 

Blogging in the 21st-Century Classroom

After realizing she didn’t have her students write enough, Michelle Lampinen, a high school English teacher in New Jersey, introduced blogging to her students. Michelle found that, much to her surprise, her students’ writing wasn’t the sloppy mess she had become accustomed to during formal writing assignments. Michelle explained that this was a great way to allow her students to improve their writing and express themselves in a way that was relevant to them.

I think this is such a great idea. Like I’ve stated before, I think this is a great way to motivate students and get them excited to write! I think this would be such a powerful way to help second graders feel important. For them to believe that others are reading their thoughts and valuing their opinions and gaining confidence in themselves is just incredible to me.

 

Blogging? It’s Elementary, My Dear Watson!

Although blogging is typically considered a middle school or high school project, elementary school teachers are bringing blogs into their classrooms. Blogging has been known to help improve students’ writing because students tend to write better when they have an audience other than their teacher. So why wouldn’t elementary school teachers not want to use blogging in their classrooms? There are many easy ways a teacher could incorporate blogging in their daily classroom routines. For example, one teacher mentioned in the article had his students create a commentary on the day’s news stories. All a teacher needs to do is download a program for free, such as Blogmeister, or purchase a program, like KidzBlog. Both are easy to use and have the necessary safety features. Neither of the blogs allows the students to post on the blog until the teacher reviews the post and publishes the entry. I think that both of these programs are great to use in an elementary classroom. I know I was a little hesitant to bring blogging in my classroom for fear of my students’ safety, but these programs make it so easy for me to ensure my students are staying safe online.

How to Use Blogs in the Classroom

Blogs are a great tool to use in the classroom and there are a number of ways teachers or students could use blogging. The teacher may find that creating a class blog, where the teacher can publish assignments, resources, and keep the students and parents up to date about the happenings in the classroom, is much easier and more useful than passing out papers. The teacher could also have the students post their writing assignments to the blog. Students in clubs or on teams could create a blog informing their fellow classmates about their organization.

Before setting up a blog, it’s important to set guidelines and expectations, not only for your students, but for you and the blog, as well. Check with your principal for a written guideline, as some schools may not allow pictures of students on blog pages or they may require you to get parent permission before posting. Research other classroom blogs, so that you can get a clear idea and examples of what you want your blog to be. It’s important to remember that blogging isn’t something that can only be used in an English class to improve writing, but also as tool that can be used across the curriculum. Before having your students post, review the rules for plagiarism, as well as your rules for blogging. As stressful as blogging can seem, it’s a fun way to help improve your students’ writing.

Good luck and happy blogging my fellow teachers!

National Geographic Blogs and Scholastic Blogs

When I think of classroom blogs, I think of my own personal classroom blog, like this one, or a blog where the teacher posts assignments and students turn in their assignment by responding to posts. Recently, I’ve discovered new ways to use blogs in the classroom. Students can use blogs as a way to collaborate as they work on a project by creating posts and responding to each other by commenting on the posts, which I think is a great way for students to get in touch with one another when they’re not in the classroom, and I can easily monitor their communications.

Another great way to use blogs in the classroom, and I got this idea from viewing the National Geographic and Scholastic Blogs, is to have a page on the blog dedicated to each group project. The students can research the project and then post their part to the page. This way the teacher can see exactly which students participated and how much they contributed. This type of blog is an easy way to take some of the negativity out of group projects because it holds every group member accountable.  I can see this type of blog being used in high school, middle school, or even upper elementary school. And the cool thing about it is that it doesn’t have to be used in just ELA classes, which I feel is often the norm with blogging. Blogging is an easy way to use literacy throughout the curriculum, and I think that it would be a nice change of pace for some students.

 Trello

Trello is the perfect site for our OCD friends out there. Say you’re working on a group project, organizing a trip, or planning a potluck dinner with your neighbors, with Trello you can easily keep track of assignments, work collaboratively, establish accountability, and communicate with others all in one place. Users can create boards, which represents a project, to organize tasks on lists. Lists, or the different stages of a project, hold cards, which are various tasks that need to be completed or remembered. The user can move the cards to various lists as their completed. For example, if you needed to make a ‘to do’ list, instead of writing it on a piece of paper, you can use Trello to see what you need to do, what you’re doing, and what you’ve completed. Trello makes it easy for you to establish accountability when working collaboratively. The user can add group members to the board and assign cards. Group members can turn their work in on the site, as well as easily communicate with the other members.

I will probably never use Trello, simply because I’m not a “list person” per say, or if I do create lists, it’s on a post-it and takes less than a minute to make. I can see Trello being useful for high school or even middle school teachers to assign specific parts in a group project and follow progress, but I don’t see it being practical in my classroom.

 Google Docs

Google Docs is word processing for teams. It’s similar to creating a word document, but instead of only one person being able to work on the document at the time, multiple people can work on the same document from different devices at the same time. With Google Docs you can create, collaborate, comment, and chat. Google Docs can be accessed across various devices, with or without internet, which makes it easy to use in the classroom or at home. I can assign group projects and check to see which students have contributed to the assignment. Google Docs makes it easy for me to provide feedback by giving me the option to leave comments on the assignment or I can communicate with students while they’re working at home through the chat feature on Google Docs. Any teacher in any grade can use Google Docs, just as long as their students are able to use a computer or other electronic device.

 

   Concept Mapping

Concept mapping is a type of knowledge representation in which the learner makes a graphical representation of the concept and the links, which represents a relationship between concepts, that connect the concepts to one another. The concept mapping technique came around the 1960s, when Joseph D. Novak studied the technique based on the theories of David Ausubel. Asubel stressed the importance of prior knowledge in being able to learn about new concepts. From studying Asubel’s theories, Novak concluded that meaningful learning involves the assimilation of new concepts and propositions into existing cognitive structures. So concept maps, simply put, are a way for us to visually represent our new learning and how it connects to our prior knowledge.

There are a lot of ways to incorporate the use concept maps in the classroom. You can have your students use them to brainstorm ideas, design complex structures, communicate complex ideas, aid learning, and assess understanding. There are many advantages to using concept mapping in your classroom. Concept mapping provides a visual representation of learning using minimal text, which makes it great for any grade level. 

      

 





Check out this concept map maker!

Happy mapping!

Graphic Organizers

Several studies have been conducted about the use of graphic organizers, which are a way to visually represent information, and how they help to improve student learning and performance across grade levels, with diverse students, and in a broad range of content areas. Using graphic organizers can improve reading comprehension, student achievement, thinking and learning skills, retention, and cognitive learning theory. The benefits from using graphic organizers in your classroom are endless!

For me, because I’m such a visual person, graphic organizers really help me in my everyday life. I use them while I’m lesson planning, reading, teaching, etc. My students really love using graphic organizers, too. Ever since I’ve introduced graphic organizers in my classroom, I’ve noticed improvements in my students’ comprehension and writing. Before we ever start writing any big pieces, I always have them create a graphic organizer to help them brainstorm ideas and then I let them talk with their table partners about their ideas, which is great because they’re able to work together to give each feedback. Of course there are a thousand other ways to use graphic organizers in your classroom, this is just one!

 

Podcasting: Hear What the Buzz is About

Before reading this article, I thought podcasts were similar to radio talk shows that could be downloaded to your iPod. As I learned from reading this article, there are a wide variety of podcasts, from music to politics. Podcasts are audio files which allow anyone with a mic, computer, and internet connection put their thoughts out for the world to hear. From what I understand, podcasts are similar to blogs. A user interested in a certain topic or speaker can subscribe to the podcasts using various sites.  Podcasts are a great alternative to speaker presentations, since they can be downloaded and listened to whenever the user chooses.

Podcasts are a great classroom resource. Your students can listen to speakers from around the world without ever having to leave the classroom. It’s a great alternative to you lecturing about a certain topic, now the students can listen about it from a knowledgeable other. Since there are no limits of the topics podcasts cover, there’s literally something for everyone and everything.

What's Behind the Great Podcast Renaissance?

When podcasting first came on the scene in 2001, it quickly became popular, but around 2009 its popularity started to decline. The stalwarts stayed around, but, unfortunately, there was little to choose from outside of those big podcasts. Now the opposite problem exists, there are actually too many great podcasts to keep up with. We seem to be in a golden age of podcasting. Why the sudden surge of popularity? Well for starters, podcasts have simply just gotten better. They’ve become a full-scale production that costs less than producing a radio or TV show. Software makers, such as Apple, have made podcasts more accessible to users. Apple created a non-deletable app for the latest version of its mobile operating system. One of the biggest factors, however, is the ability to play smartphone audio over a car’s speakers. Now it’s easier than ever to listen to your favorite podcasts while you’re driving to work.

 

Radio Willowweb

Radio Willowweb is Willowdale Elementary School’s school radio. Kindergarten to fifth grade students at Willowdale create podcasts or ‘Willowcasts’ as the school calls it. The show has won several awards and has even been published by Scholastics as #2 in their Top Ten Podcasts. I think this is such a precious and great idea. I mean what better way to empower your students is there? The students spend time researching a certain topic and with the help of teachers from the school, they create their podcasts.

The first podcast I chose to review is Radio Willowweb’s first ever all-kindergarten podcast was possible the cutest thing I’ve ever heard. It’s a little hard to understand the kindergarteners, but they’ll impress you with their knowledge about President’s Day. The students spent weeks reading books and researching presidents just to produce this podcast!

The second podcast I chose to review is a group of fifth graders learning about matter. This group is easier to understand than the group of kindergarteners I listened to last. It very organized and most of the students are very articulate. I was very impressed with the students, their knowledge, and how they presented it.

The third podcast I chose to review is a group of second grade boys from Mrs. Januelwicz’s class. The boys have completed a research project about volcanoes and wanted to share some of the information they learned about the volcanoes. Personally, my favorite part of the podcast was the comedic aspect. The boys had me rolling in laughter at their cheesy volcano jokes! The second graders aren’t as articulate as the fifth graders, but you can understand them.  

Video Production in a Cooperative Learning Environment

There are several roles that take part in making a video that, as a teacher, you must think about. Your role in the video is the producer. The producer is responsible for seeing that the video is created on time and on budget. The producer is also responsible for hiring a crew (your students). Before ‘hiring’ your crew, explain all of the positions and responsibilities. You can either let your students choose their role, or assign a role to them. Because creating a video requires a team effort, you can assign multiple students to a role.

Your more creative students might be drawn to the screenwriter position. This position requires them to create the content of the video. The more outgoing students will likely want to take on the role of the talent, the actors and actresses. The students that try to run the classroom any time you’re not looking will love the role of the director, which is the person that direct their peers to stay on task. Your more introverted students will want the behind-the-scenes positions, such as the camera operator, editor, technical director, costume, makeup, and set and props staff. There’s literally a role for every student in your class. When the final product is complete your students will have worked together to create an awesome project that they will proudly show off to everyone.

What to Teach

If your school doesn’t have a trained professional to teach the video production class and you somehow find yourself teaching the class, keep calm and don’t panic. Misty explains everything you need to know about teaching video production. The first thing you need to do is to define your expectations in professionalism; dress and copyright then move into crew positions, titles and job responsibilities. You should define each role as needed for your production. It’s important to let your students gravitate towards the job they feel the most comfortable in. Once you’ve assigned roles and gone over your expectations, you can then move on to the basics of the equipment. Make sure to use basic vocabulary to help everyone communicate effectively. Once you’ve taught this, the next step is to assign a project. Different skillsets will be taught with each project and it’s up to you to decide what your students will complete. It can be anywhere from news broadcasting to game shows to commercials!

Feel like a professional yet? No? That's okay! Check out this website for more helpful tips!

Storyboard Your Project

Turning your screenplay into a film can be overwhelming, that’s why many writers use storyboards. Storyboarding allows you to lay out the vision you have for your video. Before you begin storyboarding, there are certain tasks to perform and decisions to make. The first thing you need to do is evaluate your screenplay and picture it in terms of separate shots that can be translated into individual storyboard panels. Once you have an idea of what you want, you need to evaluate each shot. Where is the location? How many actors are needed in the shot? Etc. Once you’ve done that, you can create a shot list and decide which shots you want to storyboard. Some only choose to storyboard the shots that require a lot of work, others storyboard everything to get a better picture of how their film will turn out. You don’t need to buy any specific thing to create a storyboard, you can, but it’d be cheaper just to draw out some squares on a sheet of paper.

I see storyboarding as a great resource to use in the classroom. Even if your students aren’t creating a video, you could have them use storyboards to write and illustrate a book or even to organize their thoughts before they begin writing. Storyboards act as a graphic organizer in my classroom. Since most of my students are very visual, it helps them to draw out their thinking before they begin writing.

Check out this example storyboard!

 

Classroom Video Projects

Video projects are so easy to create. In most cases, there is already software installed on your computer, such as Windows Movie Maker or iMovie. Users can upload videos, add narration or subtitles, and even music! With videos being easier than ever to create, it’s time we bring this art into our classroom. Creating a video lets every type of student in your classroom get involved. There’s behind-the-scenes roles for the shyer students and roles for the more outgoing students. Like I said, there’s literally a job for everyone.

I really like the idea of having my students create a short newscast of school and classroom events. Once we get the hang of making the videos, it could become a weekly project. Instead of sending out newsletters every Friday, I could post their newscast on YouTube, or on my blog every week! I would write down the important stuff that needs to go into the newscast, but the rest is up to them! And of course, I would have them switch roles every week, that way everyone gets a taste of every job. I feel like their parents would love it just as much as I would!

 

An Introduction to Project-Based Learning

Project-based learning, also referred to as project learning, has students exploring real world problems and because there's no real curriculum, as in you have to learn this skill on this day, students are developing skills across all content areas. Because project-based learning requires students to dive deeper into an area that interests them, students are more likely to retain what they've learned. In addition to inspired learning, students are also developing confidence and self-direction as they work individually and collaboratively. Teachers that have brought project-based learning into they classrooms have reported their students' communication skills have grown tremendously from working in groups and talking to people in the school and community. Students are also learning great organizational and research skills. Project-based learning is a great way to integrate technology into the classroom and a great way to have students become experts in technology. Computers, iPads, cameras, and smart boards are only a few pieces of technology you could have your students use. 

 

An Overview of Project-Based Learning

Technology has been the driving force behind the project-based learning movement. Having students immerse themselves in technology and learning deepens their understanding of certain topics. Either the teacher or students will pick a topic to study for the semester. Then they'll spend their time doing fieldwork, such as going on field trips to gather information, talking to community members, and conducting research. 63 The students will then develop a final project and present it to their school, class, or community.

The idea of project-based learning really interests me. I feel like in order for it to work, however, your school and principal has to be behind you 100%. Project-based learning takes time and effort, but the end results are so worth it. Project-based learning prepares students for that thing called the "real world" we keep hearing about. Students learn all kinds of things, from confidence to a wide variety of content knowledge skills.

 

Project-Based Learning: Real-World Issues Motivate Students

Gone are the times when our students would sit and we would teach and they would nod their heads at the appropriate times. Times have changed, and it’s a good thing! Project-based learning has taken over. Now, project-based learning isn’t exactly a new idea, but slowly and surely more teachers and school systems are moving to project-based learning.  How many times have you been sitting in a class, learning some skill and said, “I will never use this in the real world”? I know I’ve said it a countless number of times. Well, project-based learning takes sit-and-get learning to exploration. Students try to answer a question, one that’s relevant to them, that’s greater than the immediate task at hand. Instead of learning a certain set of skills in each content area class, students are learning skills to, get this, use in the REAL WORLD while working on this one project. Sylvia Chard, Professor Emeritus of Elementary Education at the University of Alberta, recommends a three phase approach. Phase one has the students involved in a discussion about the project topic. Phase two involves fieldwork (this is where the magic happens). Students gather information by reading, writing, drawing, computing, and talking with experts. Phase three has the students present the project to an audience. 

If you’re wondering if project-based learning is right for your classroom, the benefits alone are enough to sway your opinion because there is a ton! Researchers and educators say that enthusiasm for learning is the biggest benefit. Because students are excited about what they’re learning, they tend to dig deeper and expand their interest in learning a wide variety of subjects. This deep thinking and learning causes students to retain what they’ve learned rather than forgetting it right after a test.