Student blogs are up! Excitement was in the air today as they got their first look at their official weblogs. You can check them out by following the links on the left side of the page. Today we reviewed the "Writing Tips" I previously posted. Then they got their first "taste" of comments and learned how to respond to them. They learned URLs to view their weblog, URLs to work on their weblogs, email addresses (bogus), user names, passwords, copy & paste (or face the despair of retyping EVERYTHING if a glitch occurs), how to post, and proofing their work. Whew! We accomplished a day's work in a couple of hours!
Now I had copied and pasted their first few stories in for them but the post today was done totally by the students. Mrs. Meeler and I walked around and helped. First thing we had the students do was read their story out loud (softly, of course!) Many errors were caught here and we've decided that that is the rule of the day and each and every day from here out! We're puzzled as to why the students resist this so but this great little group will get lots of practice doing that so it becomes second nature.
I passed out a sheet that contained the writing tips. They will use this each time they complete a homework assignment. It will be a quick check for them. We're working on developing good writing habits. Students helped each other today - quick checks of other's work. Suggestions here, suggestions there. Yep, our lab was humming with activities and Mrs. Meeler and I were making great pictures in our head of future reporters and authors.
Students, remember how I said that I wanted to make a picture in my head from your writing. Writing should paint a picture that immediately forms in your reader's mind. Get the picture?? Good!
Now all the blogs look alike. Later when we get through the mechanics of blogging we will take some time and let them customize the look of the blogs. Later I will have some comparisons of Manila and TypePad, too. I miss some features I had in Manila while at the same time appreciate lots of features in TypePad for classroom use. More on this later....
Next week we are going to meet in the KCCASE lab for a proofreading session. We'll introduce the students to common proofreading symbols and have some hands-on practice. We'll be tweaking this process as we go and maybe can develop some good handouts, guidelines, etc.
I am soaring! It feels so good to be back in the classroom blogging with the kids!