Saturday, May 4, 2013

Blogging about a blog

Alright, it's been forever since I've posted anything on TeachersPayTeachers.com.  I'll admit I've been slacking.  To be honest, the items that I've sold on there are doing really well!  I may have gotten a little greedy.  But it's not about what you earn, it's about what you share with others!  There are so many files that I've gotten from TPT that I just love and have used several times in my classroom.  The site is such a fantastic community that I have to remember the reason why I am a part of it - to support and learn from my fellow teacher.

I've had the privilege of teaching in a range of districts.  Some who are very advanced technologically (one iPad per student) to a district that can barely accommodate a working computer lab for 30 students.  It's amazing how much you learn by having to teach in schools with such different ranges of access to technology.  Whether you have access to a computer lab or not, students still need exposure to technology.  This world that our students are growing up in is NOT what we grew up with.  In my generation, my school got a computer lab full of gigantic MAC computers that took giant floppy disks and could do barely more than word processing (and didn't have the ability to print, either).  By early middle school we had keyboarding classes and were using the smaller floppy disks.  This is a technology-dependent world and in order to be successful, students should know how to navigate a computer (and arguably, a cell phone).

Here is a tool I used with a group of fourth graders.  We didn't have access to computers and I didn't have a SmartBoard or tablet, either.  Just a whiteboard and the worksheets I created.  So, I decided to integrate technology without actually having it in our classroom.

Create-Your-Own Blog graphic organizer:


You can find this on my TeachersPayTeachers account right here.

I created a graphic organizer that resembled a blog.  Before I handed it out and allowed my students to let loose, we had a mini-lesson about blogs - what are they, how are they used, why they are important, etc.  It was a great discussion and a perfect introduction into the activity.  Surprisingly, some students knew a lot about the topic.  The handout has a front and back (and can be extended to several blog entries).  It has room for a blog title and three entries - each need a title, a written entry, and an illustration.  This can be used cross-categorical with a range of topics.  It can also be multimedia if you give students the option of choosing their own method of creating an illustration (newspapers, magazines, crayon, pencil, photographs, etc).  I had my students create their rough drafts before I gave them a final copy to make using a pen.  We went over what a good blog would look like (I had examples for them that I printed off in color so they could see, and you could easily bring up several blogs if you have access to a computer), and wrote a list of what students should put on their 'paper blog' as they called it.

Reminders included: use a lot of color, write neatly, create a clever title, provide useful information, and make sure your image relates to your topic.

I had a lot of fun using this graphic organizer and making 'paper blogs'.  The students thought it was pretty neat that they were making a blog in fourth grade and enjoyed hanging them up in the classroom for everyone to see.

Technology is great!  Even if you don't have a significant amount of it at your disposal, you can still prepare students for the "real world" using tools such as this.  I hope you find it as helpful as I did!

Emily :)

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