65 Interesting Ideas* for Class Blog Posts
*and tips
This work is licensed uknder a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial Share Alike 3.0 License.
Blogging Research Wordle by Kristina B
#1 - Share a Photo of your Classroom
Explain about the different parts of it and how it is being used. Invite other teachers and classes to write a similar blog post explaining about their classrooms.
Encourage children from your class to leave comments about what they like about it or even suggestions for changes they would like to see.
#2 - Publish children's work
Don't just post work that is flawless but also invite comments and suggestions on work that can be improved.
#3 - Publish your shared writing
As you produce writing with the class in your lessons, post it to your blog.
Invite the class or blog visitors to improve something and to comment.
#4 - Share your classroom agreement
This can be done at the beginning of the year and is a good way to share your class agreement with the wider community.
#5 - Share a photo of a class display
#6 - Post a math video from the IWB
For example the written methods for multiplication are included, the children can use it as a revision aid.
The parents get to see how the school wants it set out AND the children get to comment on their favoured method.
#7 - Post images from your digital microscope
"What is under our microscope?" - or even asking for people to guess what the image is and to comment on the suggestions.
Flies eye by MuseumWales
#13 Tutorials
Create screencast tutorials, or still image shots for things that you want your students to know.
(ie: how to log into specific sites, or how to play a math game)
If your students are older, have them create the
tutorials or screenshots.
#16 - Post a Glog (edu.glogster.com)
Have students use Tagxedo or Wordle to create a survey question, and have the students rotate computers to answer several of their classmates' survey questions, open-ended questions, or opinion questions. The blog post can be used to upload and interpret the image. *Note - Tagxedo word clouds also come with 'Embed' code which can be copied and pasted into a blog post to show a more interactive word cloud.
#18 Create a Top List
Crowd source the class for the top reasons for....
Or individual blogs of top list...
#17 Embed a Voki Talking Avatar
Have students use Voki.com to create and then embed a talking avitar onto a blog post. This can be an effective way for students to narrate a piece of work, enhance language skills, and also take in information in a non-textual way.
#14 Ask an interesting maths question
Give the children a chance to ask their questions. Before someone tries to answer it, value the question and stick it on the blog.
Then the whole world can have a go. When the answers come in use them as a discussion point for more maths.
#15 Create and Interpret a Word Cloud
#19 Use Wallwisher to...
@surreallyno
- get feedback from your students on a certain topic (e.g. What was difficult in this task?)
- get students to brainstorm ideas (e.g.we brainstormed titles for a class story we had created collaboratively)
- get students express an opinion, a prediction, a hypothesis etc
#20 Use online free polls to...
allow students to give authentic feedback
@surreallyno
#29 Use a blog to share poetry and songs the students are learning.
Give the students a chance to see their performance and perhaps inspire someone else to learn the poem or song too!
@lisagallin
#30 Use a blog to describe classroom procedures and why you do them.
Make a post to explain some of your everyday classroom routines and procedures and point out what the kids are learning from them.
@lisagallin
#31 Use a blog to
summarise information
learned from
guest speakers.
Record information learned from guest speakers so it can be reviewed by the class later.
@lisagallin
#32 Create digital stories with myebook and embed these in a blog. Also useful for showing good work.
#33 Create a class list of library books or books which "teacher used to read" with a Shelfari blog widget http://www.shelfari.com/
#34 Create a "pupil of the week" on the blog using an avatar creation app like face your manga. Or reward several students with various titles. e.g. "Most hepful".
#35 Post an introduction to a text or topic and ask students to create or answer a series of questions in the comments section.
"There was once a shepherd-boy who kept his flock at a little distance from the village. Once he thought he would play a trick on the villagers and have some fun at their expense. So he ran toward the village crying out, with all his might, ”Wolf! Wolf! Come and help! The wolves are at my lambs!'' The kind villagers left their work and ran to the field to help him. But when they got there the boy laughed at them for their pains; there was no wolf there."
#36 Put a "Who is visiting us?" clustr map in a widget on your blog. "Whos.amung us?" has some great statistics which can enthuse students when they see the number of people and the different countries visiting.
#37 - Question Chain
In any content area: (This works super well with a book study)
Teacher posts a question.
First student answers it and poses a new question.
Second student answers that question and poses a third.
And so forth........
Questions cannot be repeated.
@hcarver (idea compliments of Dan Frew)
#38 - Student Learning Journals
Have students summarize what they've learned that week, questions that came up, and questions moving forward.
Each student could write his/her own post or you can assign a rotation of "bloggers of the week."
#39 - Invite Parents to Share
Have a sharing week with parents bringing their gifts to your blog, with art work, writing, poetry and encouraging stories. Students will love seeing their parents as co- contributors and part of the learning community.
#40 - Group problem solving
Post a real-life school-based issue (being cautious about privacy, of course) and have the students in the comments section brainstorm ways to solve it. We did this on the subject of students posting inappropriate things on the blog!
@MzMollyTL
#41 - Learning styles revealed!
Students (and teachers) create posts about their favourite ways of learning (intrapersonal or interpersonal, through trial and error or modelled work, etc.) The grade 5-6s were fascinated and surprised to hear that their class teacher wasn't a big non-fiction reading fan when she was younger.
@MzMollyTL
#42 - Literature questions
Many of our teachers use blogging in the classroom for literature responses (Posting questions about a text). In each question, they identify the skill being addressed in each question. (i.e. analysis, comprehension, evaluation, application, etc.)����Mary Rizzo
#43 - Class Pet
Blog about the activities of a class pet or class mascot, especially if the pet/mascot travels home with students. ��We have a school blog where we post photos and stories about the adventures of our school mascots. Students take them on vacation and then email photos and a story that I then put on the blog.
http://parsleypatriotkids.blogspot.com/
�Mary Rizzo
#44 - Embed Vocaroo recordings
#45 - Use AnswerGarden
Use Answer Garden http://answergarden.ch/create/. It is an amazing web app!
Write a question, embed the link in the blog and kids start writing! You and they view in REAL-TIME what answers/words others write.
In addition to this, the application lets you export ALL the answers automatically in Wordle!
My students brainstormed adjectives (they are 2nd graders, 2nd lang. learners) Guess how many they could in 10 minutes? 120 adjectives! That would be impossible in a regular paper-pen class.
You can use a PASSWORD to protect the link (it was specially designed for classroom use).
get
@surreallyno
Just for fun - check this link and let's write together!
#46 - Use iNudge
Use iNudge http://www.inudge.net/index.en.html# It is a web app that allows kids to create own music and then embed it in class blog.
It is way too simple! They have 8 instruments to choose from; they combine them, change the tempo etc. Then ...simple: share through blog!
You can use the songs in your WRITING class - as story prompts, in your LANGUAGE class - what adjectives/adverbs come to your mind when listening to this? etc.
The uses are, again, up to you and your creativity. :)
@surreallyno
#47 - Use Max My Dream
Use Max My Dream http://www.maxmydream.com/ (elementary students).
Basically, kids use 140 words starting from the given I dreamed that.. and when they finish, click Play.
The application basically creates a visual representation of their dream (e.g. if the dream involves "butterflies"they would appear flying in the window).
You can use it for practicing writing skills. Students embed the dream into the blog and challenge others to actually guess -by writing a sentence ("I think you dreamed about...who was...and...").
I always loved to combine the written words
with the arts because that stirs creativity.
@surreallyno
#48 - Embed a Toondoo.
Use Toondoo (www.toondoo.com) to create a comic strip. Toondoo has a number of different options for embedding.
-There are loads of possible uses for Toondoo. We have used them to plan new chapters for 'The Iron Man' and will be using them this term for some persuasive writing about saving water.
-You could use
Toondoo to create
your own science
Concept Cartoon
and embed it on
your blog.
@mdcrow
#49 - Post Unit-Based Critical Inquiry Questions
Post the driving inquiry question (pre-unit and post-unit) and have students answer (in the comment section) .
Provides:
Diagnostic assessment of student "prior knowledge"about the unit content.
Summative assessment of student knowledge gained as a result of the instruction and learning activities of the unit.
@WendyGoodman
#50 - Integrate quizzes
I embedded a quiz for kids and they figured out (by themselves !) how to create one :)) (and they are 2nd graders!)
At the end of the quiz kids click Submit and get their score.
The tool is Quiz Box http://www.quizbox.com/builder/
(see sample below)
@surreallyno
Students encourage family members to leave comments on the class blog. Winners earn a free post on the blog!
Click here to see the post.
@lindayollis
#51- Family Blogging Month
Use the ClustrMap to practice place value.
Do a post on a special number like a palindrome!
@lindayollis
#52 - ClustrMap Ideas
#53 - Digital Camera/Math/Language
Use a digital camera to document math arrays on campus. Write a sentence to match the image.
@lindayollis
Students wrote sample word problems like the one on this post. They submitted their word problems in the comment section.
Student word problems were used for review the following day.
See the comment section for word problems about Lincoln, Washington, and Drew Brees.
@lindayollis
#54 - Student created word problem used for review
# 55 - Have a grandparent be a guest blogger!
@lindayollis
# 56 - Rain Forest animal Comments
Students research a rain forest animal and then leave a comment as if they are the animal. Click here to read some sample comments.
@lindayollis
# 57 - 365 Project
Daily Digital Documentation
Students and/or teacher contribute a photo a day.
Comments: What do you like about the photo? Make up a story about this photo.
@lindayollis
Put helpful hints on the blog to get the parents up-skilled!
e.g. �How to Make a Comment on a Blog Post��Step 1: Go the blog and read the blog post for your child, or for the day. At the bottom of the blog post it says 'comments' (sometimes it might say '2 comments' - this means two people have commented on the post).�Click on 'comments'. ��Step 2: This will take you to a page with the post at the top and a comment box like this at the bottom: �
�Click here for the rest of the post we did on this.
# 58 - Help the Parents
# 59 - Flash Games
Use this amazing link
to create flash games and
embed them in the blog.
Kids love them!
You customize content and can
choose from a wide variety of graphics.
@surreallyno
# 60 - Slideshows
Use this link http://www.slide.com/arrange students can create slideshows in 3 easy steps. No signup required.
They can embed the photos in the blog and peers can leave comments.
The photos can be customized (kids play with colors, styles, skins etc).
*Check our class wiki for Photo tools and resources
http://thebunnies.wikispaces.com/PHOTO+tools
@surreallyno
# 61 - Messages
Use the blog to send messages to kids who are absent.
Practice writing and editing using KeerPoof http://www.kerpoof.com/#
(kids can create cards, books etc).
@surreallyno
# 62 - Conferences
Help kids prepare for the student-led conferences with parents.
Have PDFs embedded in the blog so they can review the activities and reflect on their progress.
Create your account at http://embedit.in/ and upload PDFs, PPTs etc. that can be embedded in any blog/website.
@surreallyno
# 63 - Using VoiceThreadEdu
If you don't use VoiceThreadEdu http://voicethread.com/products/k12/ yet, you should! It's an app that allows for global collaboration.
Create threads (using photos, videos, doodling etc) and have kids all over the world contribute; embed in class blog.
@surreallyno
#64 - Embed YouTube
Embed a YouTube video to help parents learn how to use a specific technology: cthornton
#65 So students can practice their Second Language Skills
Students have an opportunity to practice their written second language skills with one another. Or share interesting second language pieces. For instance, videos or cartoons.
If you would like to:
Thanks for helping�Tom Barrett
Image: ‘Sharing‘
If you add a tip (or even if you don't) please tweet about it and the link so more people can contribute.
I have created a page for all of the Interesting Ways presentations on my blog.
The whole family in one place :-)
Have you seen Maths Maps yet?