Blogs

How to set one up, how to use one with your students, parents, and/or staff

What is a blog?

Roll out blogs by using paper first. See more here.

Ideas for using Blogs in your classroom:

Classroom Management: Post assignments, handouts, newsletters, and information about the class. For older students, have them take part in posting notes from the day's activities and lessons. They can also be used as a resource for FAQs.
Online journals: Let students share observations and reflections for field trips, guest speakers, specific activities or experiments, projects, or assessments.
Online portfolio: Use a student's blog postings as authentic assessments of writing skills, concept mastery, or as a demonstration of understanding.
Class discussion: Use small group or individual blogs to provide students an outlet for ongoing discussions or areas for Q and A.
Individual Expression: Let your students share their creative side through postings of personal writing. Using a blog provides you (and your students) an opportunity to present individual points of view without taking away from instructional time.
Morning or End of the Day journal: Use a blog as a new way to get feedback from your students about what they learned or accomplished. Take a K-W-L chart to a new level using a blog.
Pre-viewing material: Use a blog to present preview information (this can even be in the form of multimedia) to activate students prior to instruction. Using a blog in this manner can also help you design the most effective lessons because you will know in advance what your students already know.
Assessment: Let your students show what they know using a blog. Ask them to work individually or in smaller groups to apply what they've learned to respond to an open-ended prompt.
Communication with parents: Let the students post the classroom happenings in a blog to help parents keep up with the learning activities.
Communication between students and teachers: For any teacher who wished they had time to talk with all of their students, blogs can be a real (and free) solution. Students can post questions about assignments (which other students may also want to know). Teachers can post additional information to clarify an assignment or to provide extension or remediation activities for students who need additional support.
Collaboration: Let your students work with kids at another school (or even in another country) on a topic or unit.
Teacher collaboration: Don't let your kids have all the fun, use a blog to connect with other educators who can share their ideas, successes, and resources.

Which blog host should I use?

Don't forget that Edmodo could serve as your blog.

Blogger Tour

Set up a Blogger(need a gmail)

Kidblog(allows your students a blog platform connected to your blog)

Why kidblog? http://kidblog.org/why-kidblog/

Links:

Blogging Basics - An article from Education World that outlines the basics of blogging and offers suggestions for using blogging in the classroom

Rubrics for blogs - Examples of different rubrics you can use to evaluate student responses on a blog

Your turn to post to a blog - List ways you have used technology in your classroom.

For this activity, you will reply to the prompt. Please follow the directions listed below to complete the activity.

Discuss with the people at your table the ways you have used technology in your classroom.
Click here to access the blog, click on the word "Comments" at the end of the blog post. You will see a text box on the screen.
Type your groups' responses into the text box. Be sure to include the first name of the members of your group so you can read and comment to each other's replies.
After posting your reply, scroll down and choose "Anonymous", and click to post your reply.
Read and respond to other group's comments when you are done.

How do you embed a voki in blogger?

To embed in a post:

Start a new post (or edit one already made)

Left click the button HTML

Paste code from your voki

Save

To post to the sidebar:

Option 1:

1. Copy the code for voki

2. On the layout tab while editing blogger, click on Add a gadget.

3. Choose HTML/Java Script from the list.

4. Paste in your code. Save

5. View blog. It should be there.

Option 2:

1. After creating Voki (still in voki) click on Publish.

2. Select the orange Blogger icon. (orange block with white B)

3. Log in to your blogger account

4. Check the box that says Post to sidebar

How do you embed a Google calendar in Blogger?

1. Go to your google calendar

2. click on the wheel icon (top right)

3. click settings

4. click the calendars tab and then select your calendar

5. scroll down until you see embed and the code for your calendar.

6. Go to your blog and select HTML on the left and paste the code

7. Publish

If the calendar is too big for your post space, you can adjust the width in the code.

Where do you find gadgets to embed?

1. Go to your blog and click design

2. choose layout

3. click anywhere that says add a gadget

4. a list choice will pop up in a new box

5. make your choice and save

You can also access outside things and embed the code on your blog (voki, google calendar, movie slide show etc.)

Can you use flahsing text inside blogs and wikis?

I did not see an option in Blogger itself but I did Google flashing/animated texts.

I found this site: http://www.flashvortex.com/texts.php There are probably a million more so explore.

I created a text and then copied/pasted the code into the blog (choose HTML on your post).

You can paste the code into the wiki as well.

View the same activity on Kidblog:

http://kidblog.org/MsWelchsClass-3/6306c12b-0dba-44b6-8cbd-0ade3272a525/inspired-classroom-day-1/

Questions:

How do you embed a Google form into Blogger?

-After creating your form in Google docs, click on the right upper corner "more actions"

-choose "embed"

-copy the code

-go to your blog and paste the code on a new page or new post

-remember to choose HTML in the upper left corner prior to pasting your code.

How do you embed a Google Document into Blogger?

Open up the Google doc you have uploaded to Google docs.

Select File

Select Publish to the Web

Click start publishing (if it is not selected already)

You will then see two things in the box (document link-url and embed code)

I found the google docs can look "smooshed" up when embeded on the blog so I prefer to just list the link to the document. For some reason pdf files in google docs look great embeded.

How to embed a pdf google document:

open the pdf google doc (after you upload it to google docs)

click file

choose embed this pdf file

copy and paste code into your blog post/page

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