Reflective Voices

Caleb makes Kristine's day!

Check this out. This is a post from Kristine's blog and it recognizes Caleb!

Today when I went on my blog I actually had two comments awaiting my approval.  I looked at the first comment and realized that it was a student from one of the online classrooms I was mentoring.  He responded to one of the question I had asked him.  I had asked him what his favorite part of the King Tut exhibit was, that his class went on.  It pretty much made my day to see that someone actually read one of the comments I had made on their blog and took the time to respond back.  Thank you Caleb!

Do you have similar feelings when you receive comments? Make a comment and tell us how you feel. These Canadian pre-service teachers are pretty special, right? I think they rock!

Flickr photo credit: Sandwich Board from zappowbang's photostream

Summer's Blog

I am using Summer's blog to show a class how to link to another blog. I enjoyed reading Summer's post about Halloween. Summer had fun trick or treating and even collected enough candy to fill two bags.  I think Summer has an interesting blog.

Let's get inspired!

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! It's good to be back with you once again!

Today we are going to enjoy reading some other student blogs and then we will share what inspires us! Plus everyone will learn how to link which is an important skill for good bloggers to learn!  Get ready for some fun and learning!

Here's an example of a link.  I love reading this blog! The author is sooooooo cool! He is one of my favorite bloggers!

We are thankful!

Thanksgiving will be here in just a couple of days. Wow! We do have much to be thankful for! I am thankful to work with a great bunch of students each week! You are a fantastic group.

Let's have a little fun with one of the cool tools on the web. Get ready to meet a talking squirrel, a cool cat, an amazing flower, a dazzling tomato, and an awesome owl. What about making some "thankful" comments? You might even want to give a "shout out" to some of your commenters using these fun tools. Be creative and have a blast! 

Posts, podcasts, and planning!

I am enjoying reading your "principal" posts and viewing your podcasts. We will try to do more of the podcasts next week. I know many of you were very nervous before your first podcast but soon you will be "seasoned" pros. Let's put our heads together next week and talk about what makes a good podcast. I'm sure you have many good ideas. We will plan together!

We also heard from Mrs. Mateling who was a former J. H. House teacher. She was the teacher of my very first blogging group - the NewsQuest group. Do you remember looking through their blogs when we did the webquest at the beginning of the year? They were a very special group, just like you are very special. She made a comment on a previous post. Do any of you remember her? Take time to reply to her questions. She will enjoy hearing from you.

Mrs. Emmert was giving you some good tips on posts and comments yesterday. Take them to heart, they will make you a better writer and a better thinker. I can't wait to hear from those of you who remember the tips. Be one of the first to share.

Have a great week!  See you next Tuesday!

Celebrating Comments

I can't wait to see you tomorrow. It looks hopeful that we can really devote some time to answering our comments. I have some tally sheets ready for you that will expedite the process. We have been hearing from Canada, China, and many different states in the U.S. A class in China has connected with us. They will be interesting to network with and we will learn a lot from each other. Remember your comment starters - you may want to try using some of them and let your commenters know how much you appreciate hearing from them.

• This made me think about.......
• I wonder why.......
• Your writing made me form an opinion about.......
• This post is relevant because.......
• Your writing made me think that we should.......
• I wish I understood why.......
• This is important because.......
• Another thing to consider is.......
• I can relate to this.......
• I discovered.......
• I don't understand.......
• I was reminded that.......
• I found myself wondering.......
• I learned.....

We will try to get to our Voice Thread project, too. We persevere! Aren't the students from Mr. Shareski's class great? They have been faithful to comment to you. And Harley has been on a number of blogs! He too is faithful. So show your appreciation with some dynamite comments! Have fun and if you need help with anything just let me know.

Election day approaches!

Hello boys & girls!

Just wanted to let you know that I miss meeting with you this week but I think it is great that your schools have decided to close for election day. Thanks to unprecedented turnout for Georgia’s advance voting, 2 million people won’t have to go to the polls on Election Day. Wow!

You may have seen some of the long lines of people taking advantage of the early voting. Thirty-one states offer this option and it seems that people are really taking advantage of this option. Voting is good!

As I listened to the news this morning I learned about some interesting polling locations. New Jersey and Nevada offer voting at mall locations. California has drive-through voting. In Georgia you can get a flu shot and vote at the same place. I'm all for anything that makes it easier for citizens to vote. Don't you agree?

This is an important day for our nation. Soon we will know who our new President will be!

I hope you enjoy your day off and I look forward to seeing you again next week!

Flickr Photo Credit: Ask What You Can Do for your Country from Randy Son of Robert's Photostream

Comments are appreciated!

Wow! You have certainly been getting a lot of comments from your readers. Isn't that great? We send a great big shout of appreciation to all the readers who are commenting on the students' blogs. Each and every comment is valued and appreciated.  Students, I know you are anxious to answer all of them but once again time flew by. Wouldn't it be grand if we could devote a whole day to blogging?








As I walked around the class, I noticed how thoughtful and diligent you were about reading each comment. Then I could see you thinking about a response before you began to actually post a reply. That's great! Also, as you get faster with your typing, you will get more done. Remember to use both hands like you learned in keyboarding class.  Don't worry, we will get to respond to the comments as we can.
 
We had a good discussion about many of the things you have learned about blogging. You have been good listeners and I love the questions you ask. We are all learning together. You seemed really intrigued about the Voicethreads project which we will continue working on next week.

Mrs. Emmert told me that you were talking about persuasive essays in class. Hmmm, that might be a good topic for a blog post. What topics would you be interested in tackling? Can you think of issues that you feel strongly about that? Do you have enough facts and logical thinking to  convince others to see the issue as you do? Be thinking about this.

As you continue to blog, be thinking about your learning. This means looking back and thinking about what you have done, how you could improve it, what you need to understand it better, and basically what works for you. We'll share our ideas on how we learn best and use our blogs to try to improve.

Have a great week! See you next Tuesday!

Time flies when you are having fun!

Yep, it's true. Time flies when you are having fun. Don't you agree?  It seems that our blogging sessions just race by and our time in the lab is never long enough!

I could tell that you enjoyed reading the comments you received. We had new comments from the University of Regina mentors. Check out Meg's Weblog. Millie Beans was a big hit! Meg is taking arts Education. It is a unique 5 year program that gets her feet wet in all of the arts areas, but her specialties happen to be Visual Art and Theatre.[Hey students, did you catch the idiom in this sentence?  Just checking - :-) ]

Next look at Kostyniuk's Weblog. Kristine shared that the main groups that affected her life were Royal Canadian Air Cadets, Horizon Winds, Canadian Girls In Training, and many school activities. She said all of these activities taught her how to interact with others, and how being a part of something makes a huge difference in ones life. I bet she will find blogging with others can make quite a difference, too. It is wonderful to make connections with others.

Amber created AMERRIT's WEBLOG and we learn all about her family and see some incredible snow pictures on this post about her Thanksgiving weekend. Wouldn't we love to see some snow like that here in Georgia?

More beautiful snow pictures form Courtney Lee's Blog. You need to read her post on The view from my kitchen table.... to see some good descriptive writing. She made her work space come alive! (Tell me how she did that next week, OK?)

I'll post more student blogs as they share. Wow! These students are just starting blogging themselves. They are using lots of neat tools - we will too as the year progresses. I enjoyed reading your posts about your fall break holiday. Can't wait till next Tuesday!

Update: Hot off the press! Here is Lindsay's blog entitled Linz1212's Weblog. I want you to take a look at her VoiceThread story. Lindsay said, "I made created a real story with a fairytale beginning and ending." I think you will enjoy it! This may be a project that we have to get involved with - what do you think?

So when we meet next week let's all give a rousing Georgia greeting through some interesting, informative, and remarkable comments to these thoughtful, creative, and clever Canadian bloggers - Meg, Lindsay, Amber, Courtney, and Kristine!

Flickr Photo Credit: Perhaps some joy... from paulo zapel's photostream