Blogging- a class changer.

Blogging
Blogging
Blogging



The kids can't get enough. They blog their journals. They blog their poetry. They blog Jasmine's diary from White Jade Tiger. They blog as explorers, fur traders and document workshops, movie making and field trips.

We started to blog with the idea of blogging once every week or two. We now blog every day we are together. The kids are always looking for more ideas to blog. They write more now. They are more creative in their blogs and they are always busy taking pictures of their work with the iPads to publish their work in their blogs.

I struggle to keep up as now I have 29 blogs to follow and a class of prolific writers.  Blogging has transformed my classroom, taken on a life of its own, given my students a purpose and an audience.  They share their blogs with family and friends and take the time to share them with each other. They like being able to show their writing to relatives from all around the world.

Writing has taken on new importance to the class.  The students have begun to take charge of their own learning and choose to blog from home as well.

Creating and Using Onine Resources For Project Based Learning

Over the past few months I have been using the iPads and Macbooks extensively in class for project based assignments. This has allowed the students to work in groups and pairs and resulted in my lower learners  participating more fully and  effectively in class.  I have created online assignments and included the resource links the students need to complete their work.

The use of video, pictures and written content together allowed my low reading level students to understand and contribute to the process of gathering information and making notes. They also used apps such as Book Creator and My Stop Motion to present their learning. 

Portion of the assignment

http://bit.ly/GYR1GQ


From this site we created books on the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway through B.C.  using iPads and  Book Creator. All of my  students were able to complete the work and share with the rest of the class. I was impressed with the resulting books and their understanding of the content. Although some of my lower students still  had problems with sentence structure they wrote more  overall and were excited to make their book.

They:
•  took more care in editing their work
• were more involved in the note taking process
• were eager to compile and assemble their work
• understood and remembered more of the content they set out to research
• developed a more holistic understanding of the topic

When asked questions on their books they were able to explain about the building of the railway and the importance of it to the Confederation of Canada.


Another project my grade 4's worked on was the exploration of Canada and again they started with the information I assembled for them and used the resources I gave them to complete a variety of assignments including the completion of a blog as one the explorers.

http://bit.ly/GYR1GQ

One of the John Cabot blogs

Students worked in pairs to show what life was like for their explorer and although the project involved not only researching but understanding and using the information they did very well I was very impressed with the results.

One explorer blog

YouTube, Us tube

We have a class YouTube channel to post our videos on. We use it because it is faster to load our webpages if we post them to YouTube then embed them. I used to have a private channel but my students wanted to find their projects without having to go through the webpage. So now the channel is public but any comments need to be approved by me before they are added. They like to comment on other's work and parents want to add their encouragement. Our school is not identified so they remain anonymous to the outside world.

http://bit.ly/ADtR19

It also gives them a sense of importance and they are always excited to share their work. So far they have legends and novel study videos posted and are eager to make more. It would be nice to have a more public forum for them to post their books as well. They want to embed them in their webpage.

What we need is an app to create public bookcases for students to share with.

QR kids

QR codes in the class. What can you do with them? We use them to connect to our blogs, webpages, and our YouTube channel. We have QR codes in our planners so that we can share our work quickly and privately with our friends and family. We have a class website:http://bit.ly/A7AmMV




It is easier to share each student's work by having a QR code that takes them right to their own page. As their own sites grow with blogs, assignments, books, and videos they can zero in on the specific page they want to share. The kids all know how to make their own codes so they can update what they want to share.
We have QR kids posted on the classroom bulletin board so we can share with each other and the school as well.

Books, Movies, and

Today we started the voice-overs and it went very smoothly. We have already used iMovie and Garageband to do voice-overs this year so this was much faster and had virtually no learning curve. Compared to My Stop Action and iMovie for making movies, using the iPads and Book Creator took about half the time. The finished product was very different but making books instead of movies is another great way to involve students in their own learning.


• Both projects required the students to work with partners so teamwork played an important role.
• Movie making required more preparation time prior to starting with the technology.
• Students had more problem solving opportunities with the filming project.
• Students thought they remembered more of the content because they needed to use the information .

" When you make a book the information stays moving around in your head."