The Write Weblog

The Wonder of Weblogs

Ashley got a get well wish from Aaron Campbell in Japan. He made a comment here on this weblog for her to read.  Isn't that the coolest thing?  I can't wait until Ashley is back with us. Hopefully, that will be next week. Ashley, if you are reading this, warm thoughts and hugs are flowing your way! From Georgia, Japan and I'm sure many other places......

Who will be the first to show me Japan on our globe?  Aaron has a weblog called The New Tanuki.  This is part of  the wonder of weblogs. You get a chance to interact with others and learn from them. Weblogs open our classroom doors. It is exciting. This, to me, is the wonder of weblogs!

I traveled over to Aaron Campbell's weblog. He has a special goodbye message to his students that is on QuickTime.   I want you to know about this feature of technology. I am going to play it for you next week. He tells his students that he feels fortunate to have crossed paths with them and that he will miss them. It is very special message.

I was so proud of your blogging this past Thursday. I want to share some of it here on our classweblog.

Jhonathan blogged about the stolen rare monkeys.......

The Stolen Rare Monkeys

I was looking around and something caught my eye.  It was an article about three people who got arrested for stealing rare monkeys.

I was like a dog catching a Frisbee. I have never seen these kinds of  animals before.

How can people be so crazy? Well, I will never steal those rare monkeys. The rare monkeys are for the public to see. I wish people wouldn't steal. Don't you? 

Paulina was reading a post of Maria's and wrote about a bad tragedy......

A Bad Tragedy

Today I read a post on Maria's weblog called Tsunami News.

It was a very sad story, but interesting at the same time. It talked about how the tsunami hit Asia.There were a lot of deaths and it was a bad thing. Her post made me think that people should always care for each other. I am glad that a lot of countries are helping and maybe you can do something about it too.

You are all reading, writing, connecting, thinking and caring..... yet again, more of all the parts that add to the wonder of weblogs.

Learning to Blog

Last Thursday when you walked into class the first thing you saw was a post entitled "Student Voices Matter! It was my previous post displayed on a large screen on the wall. You saw first-hand how much your posts meant to the Georgia State students who will one day be teachers themselves. I was also modeling for you the process of blogging. First, you read. Then you think about what you are reading. Then you begin to make connections about what you are thinking and what someone else is writing. Then you might decide to write about what you are reading and even do some linking yourself! And of course you are ALWAYS thinking and learning as you go!

I took little snippits out of the various posts from the GSU students' blogs. I made a link on my post that would go to both your blogs and the GSU blogs. The connections between you and the GSU students were great, wern't they?

Next you began to read the back and forth communications on the screen. You were grinning like cheshire cats as you read the nice responses from GSU on our class weblog. Next I displayed Teachers & Technology which is the class blog I am using with the GSU students. I showed you how I had made links on the side to the GSU student blogs. Then I shared how much fun it was to read what someone had written, create a link to their words, and then respond to what they had said. That's blogging! First you read, then you think, then you begin the process of linking and writing and more thinking! The learning is great! We talked about it and you shared your thoughts. Have I told you lately what good thinkers you are!

Then I gave each of you a GSU student name and you were going to go to their blog and read. Boo hiss! We had technology problems and many of you could not get to the sites. However, since we never like to waste our time in the lab and we do know how to refocus when problems occur, we moved on. We quickly shifted gears and decided to share the day's learning with the GSU students. You were going to help these students learn about blogging. You took on the challenging task of writing about what you were learning.

I say challenging because it is not always easy to explain step-by-step what is actually happening in our classrooms. You worked hard and got some good practice on this skill. We didn't have enough time to do it justice but you made a valiant effort. We'll work some more on these posts.

So you're learning how to find interesting writing, to respond to it by copying some of the words of interest, and then making a link back to the writer. This way you are sharing something you find worthwhile with others. You learned about hyperlinks and added to your knowledge about URLs. It was a day jam-packed with learning and a whole lot of fun.

This coming Thursday we are going to continue linking and learning!  Can't wait!

Blog! Blog!

I am so impressed with you writings on what we have been doing so far and your illustrations are wonderful.
Yes, Yessenia, you all are smart cookies! (As her illustration so cleverly depicts!)  Just think what we have accomplished in these first few months. I am sooooooooooo proud of our group of bloggers! Good thinkers, good writers, good citizens - plus much, much more. It's exciting to think where we will be by the end of the year.

I am going to post about you on a special weblog as well as my own. I'll share next year when we all return from vacation.

I wish you all a very warm and wonderful holiday season. I can't wait to see you next year!

Who says elementary students can't blog?

It was a great day! I started the day by reading my previous post to the students about connecting with Chicago. The students were elated that they had been noticed by a teacher from Chicago. Now I have to say that my students think really big cause' when I asked them to guess who had written about them the guesses ranged from President Bush to Jimmy Carter to their principal and many others. I love their enthusiasm! They were pleased as punch when they heard the nice words Steve Dembo had written. Nice way to start the day! We discussed the feelings they had when they saw comments on their site. The students were ready to blog!

The first order of the day was to practice the proof-reading skills we had worked on the previous weeks. They had taken a paper copy of their blog home and marked it with proofreading symbols. I taught them how to go in and edit their posts and how to move around their sites. In TypePad they first go to that site, then log in to their individual blog. They have lots to remember like user names, URLs of TypePad and their own sites, and email addresses. After they made corrections, they proofed their blog one last time. Then the fun began!

They read their comments, responded to them, and made comments on the principal's blog, the counselor's blog and each others' blogs. They loved it! They would find a mistake on a friend's blog and would very kindly point it out so that the owner could go back in and correct it. Teamwork was the word of the day!

Next, they got to preview the current events links on their sites. They really liked the sites that had been selected. Their task was to browse, read and think about what was of high interest to them. We shared leads, created some of our own, talked about including the 5 W's and other writing pointers. Once they had made a choice, they learned how to check to see if the site had a print page so we could conserve our printers ink. These kids are quick learners! They were busy as bees and the room was humming with activity. They put their printed copies in their folders and will take them home and write an article to bring back to class to blog about next week. This is getting to the real act of blogging and it is going to be so cool. This process of browsing, reading, learning, thinking and selecting topics will be the first order of the day for each session. I think this is going to work out well.

They really shaped up their weblogs today and are beginning to take ownership and feel pride. The comments to the counselor were interesting. She had written about the responsibility of blogging. She said blogging was a little scary for her because she wanted to write well, pick topics of interest, and do a good job for the school. You should see the comments our kids wrote to her!

Jhonathan.....

This made me think about when I did my first blog.I was scared that anyone can see my blog.I was thinking that if I made a mistake peaple will laugh at me, but this group helped me and taught me it was okay to make mistakes.

Alejandra.....

Mrs.Halloran, great work on your blog. I get neurves too when I have to wright on my weblog. I just started to wright on my blog this year. I never knew fith graders could do this and teachers. Ilike how you expres your feelings on the weblog and at the same time your helping us.
Great work!!!!

Alejandro.....

Mrs. Halloran! I wonder why you said that web logs scare you. Last year, you told me to always have effort of facing my fears. I am writing web logs and I am not scared. Actually I love to write web logs. I bet you will love them as much as I do.

Now that's just three of twelve comments. This is great and I feel charged. They were really starting to get it today!

We also touched on categories today. This is hard for elementary students. We don't give them enough real time practice with it but after a slow start they started coming up with some good ones. We'll work on this some more but this week I'll add the categories we listed.

Who says elementary kids can't blog? Go get some kids and start teaching them how writing matters on weblogs!!!! These kids would love to communicate with you!

Connecting with Chicago!

Steve Dembo is a director of technology at a school in Chicago. I found his site after he had made a nice comment on my other weblog. Now, I feel sure that he won't mind if I quote one of his posts because it is all about you and J.H. House. He is fascinated by what you have to say and wants to communicate with you. Wow! Someone in Chicago has noticed you, boys and girls! Isn't it exciting? Here is what he has to say:

"I believe I've met Anne Davis before. I think we met at NECC last year or the year before. I just discovered her blog today, and I think it's a fantastic example of how blogging can be integrated into a school community.

She started off with the school's principal, Joyce Hooper. Joyce has a blog called Principal's Quest. Her goal was to blog at least once a week, but admitted that she thought it might be a challenge to. So far, she's managed to keep it up. I love the fact that students have been commenting on her entries. It really provides s unique environment for the students and principal to bond together.

A few days ago, Anne launched blogs for an entire fifth grade class.  She used this webquest to introduce blogging to the children.  Now each student has their own blog.  It's theirs, to type up entries for school purposes, but several are also using it as an online journal.  Obviously there are concerns about abuse, but the students understand that the blog is a privilege.  Most of the students have about 4 or 5 entries in their weblog already.

This very afternoon, Anne did an inservice for four third grade teachers. She taught them all about blogging and got them each started with their own blog. Of course, each site only has a single post, but I think we can forgive them. After all, the sites are less than 12 hours old.

These blogs are nothing fancy. There aren't any incredible themes or pretty pictures. There isn't any content in particular that I think will make the front page of the New York Times. And yet, I've read through nearly every post on Anne's site, the Principals, the four third grade teachers and all fourteen students. I also remember how excited I was when I first found that someone had commented on my site, so I plan to provide some comments on the students' sites.

And that's one of the incredible things about blogs. These students in Georgia have been blogging for a few days. And here I am in Chicago, with no connection to them, their school or their community, and yet I'm fascinated by what they have to say and want to communicate with them.

Dominic Ouellet-Tremblay says it pretty well in an article on Educause.

....Blogs give us a chance to communicate between us and motivate us to write more. When we publish on our blog, people from the entire world can respond by using the comments link. This way, they can ask questions or simply tell us what they like. We can then know if people like what we write and this indicate[s to] us what to do better. By reading these comments, we can know our weaknesses and our talents. Blogging is an opportunity to exchange our point of view with the rest of the world not just people in our immediate environment.

Did I mention that Dominic is a fifth grader? He goes to school at Institut St. Joseph. If you can read French, I think you can find his blog somewhere on this site."

How about that? We'll talk more about this in the morning, but that's the power of weblogs! Get ready to collaborate, comment, read, think, write, proofread, and blog!  It's going to be a great session with all of you! I can't wait!

                              

Enter....student weblogs!

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!

KCAASE

What a great skit from Juan, Marcos and Jhonathan! I'd say they really hammed it up! It takes courage to get up in front of a group after only about 5 minutes of practice. They acted out how some folks act at sports events - not a pretty picture, right? However, we know that J. H. House students would always

KEEP CALM AT ALL SPORTS EVENTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Those letters will help us remember the key words we will be learning for our Bloom's work. We're going to be great thinkers and writers. It's fun to act out skits to help us remember Bloom's Taxonomy. I know you all have these words stored in your brains now.

KNOWLEDGE

COMPREHENSION

APPLICATION

ANALYSIS

SYNTHESIS

EVALUATION

It's fun to get up and "kick up our heels" while learning.

Ms. Meeler and I were so proud of how well you worked last Thursday. You were steadily putting down your thoughts about what we have been doing so far. We liked reading your ideas. Yep, you're sharp as tacks!

We spent time reviewing the previous session. You are going to be a great group. Tomorrow you will bring in your first draft of your concept of blogging. We will go from there. I am really looking forward to reading your first attempt at blogging about what you are learning. See you in the morning!

"Blooming" Bloggers

I am really looking forward to going to House in the morning. The kids have been selected and we start tomorrow. Yay!

Hillary sent me the names. I can't wait to meet them and start the learning journey. Today I have been working on a WebQuest to introduce them to blogging. We hope to develop some "Blooming" bloggers! Wish us the best!

Brainstorming Session

Today Hillary (ITS) and I brainstormed ideas to pose to the teachers for ways to use weblogs in their classrooms. We talked about how teachers have so many things on their plate and are feeling overwhelmed. Sometimes adding new things can seem like the straw that broke the camel's back. We don't want to overwhelm nor do we want to add to their full agenda. However, we feel they will see the value and we want to have some ideas ready that fit right in with their daily curriculum. We want to start simple and build from there. I am impressed with Hillary. She is a good thinker and willing to jump right in and learn. I am glad she ended up at this school. She is also in the midst of developing an awesome online KidsVote project. Students will be registering to vote in the computer lab and registration cards will be emailed to their teachers. Then in November, she is using the technology trailer to set up the "JHH Poll" with laptops and dividers. The students will bring their cards and vote privately. How cool is that? We are hoping to start with the students next week.

I also worked with the counselor today. We are in the midst of designing her blog and she should be posting soon. I'll share that URL when she is ready to go public!