Classroom Blog Example

Mrs Bidgood's Virtual Classroom

During my Embedded Professional Learning (EPL) placement at a school, my Mentor Teacher told me about a student who was on holidays with his family and the class were interacting with him via their blog.
Between the new knowledge I was developing in my Managing e-Learning course and the class's interest in technological tools within their learning environment I decided to develop a "pretend" classroom blog to demonstrate the many uses and benefits of having a blog specifically for a class.

The benfits:

• Meeting the needs of our "knowledge era" learners.
• Meeting the requirements for technology based learning within the National Curriculum.
• Links students home and school lives.
• Informs parents and families of current events in the classroom.
• Students are able to use technology at home which makes doing homework a lot more fun.
• Generates new and interesting understanding.
• Develops creativity, imagination and innovation (Art Costa's Habits of Mind)
• Students are able to try new things and demonstrate them to peers (HOM)
• Students can work indepentently or inteerdependently depending on the task. (HOM)
• Enables students to strivve for accuracy as they research, compare and evaluate information . (Higher Order Thinking).
• The internet and technology is an awesome phenomena that provides so many opportunities for different leanring styles. The teacher is able to taylor leanring by asigning tasks that accomodate the needs and interets of the students.

The uses:

• Assign homework via the blog. (see the Homework Voki- Literacy)
• Provide revision on a Mathematics lesson using a Youtube clip http://mrsbidgoodsvirtualclassroom.blogspot.com/2011/08/monday-15-august-2011-mathematics.html
• Inform parents about an excursion using the Fodey tool  http://mrsbidgoodsvirtualclassroom.blogspot.com/2011/08/healthy-living-excursion.html
• Provide the students an online reading text for homework http://mrsbidgoodsvirtualclassroom.blogspot.com/2011/08/reading-text-for-week-beginning-15.html
• Inform parents about current learning and provide an opportunity for them to become involved using interactive online tools http://mrsbidgoodsvirtualclassroom.blogspot.com/2011/08/interactive-cooking-game.html
• Follow the travel adventures of a classmate and encourage students to use tools such as Google Maps and 3D virtual tour to explore our country further http://mrsbidgoodsvirtualclassroom.blogspot.com/2011/08/following-joshuas-travel-blog.html
• Assign SOSE homework using Wordle to get students to use higher order thinking as follow up to a inclass lesson. http://mrsbidgoodsvirtualclassroom.blogspot.com/2011/08/sose-our-water-uses-word-cloud.html
• Inform and educate students and their families about cyber safety using links to age appropriate websites http://mrsbidgoodsvirtualclassroom.blogspot.com/2011/08/cyber-safety-starts-with-you.html
• Share resources using LiveBinder  http://mrsbidgoodsvirtualclassroom.blogspot.com/2011/08/homework-helpers.html
• Record a week of lessons where learning is being scaffolded on each day using internet tools such as Scribble Maps and higher order thinking tools such as PMIs http://mrsbidgoodsvirtualclassroom.blogspot.com/2011/08/scribble-maps.html
• Make additional pages for a student's travel blog http://mrsbidgoodsvirtualclassroom.blogspot.com/p/joshuas-travel-blog.html  or
• a page developed for students to post their own pop up books about their excursion using Zooburst http://mrsbidgoodsvirtualclassroom.blogspot.com/p/joshuas-travel-blog.html

The world of technology is scary yet exhilarating. There are so many possibilities but also so many issues to consider - cyber safety and copyright in particular.

It all comes down to being well informed, careful and knowing the rules. As future teachers we need  to not only pass on our enthusiasm for technology but also the knowledge of how to stay safe and protect ourselves in this 21st century phenomena that is the world wide web.
Happy surfing!!!