Classroom Blogs-Learning How to Write a Quality Comment

One of the most powerful features of a classroom blog is commenting.  Creating quality comments helps encourage a discussion and provides more encouragement for the author of the post.  Helping my students comment was a challenge in my own classroom and many other teachers have asked me about this as well.  I have created this post filled with resources and ideas to help you model what good commenting looks like.

The first resource is a post from Mrs. Yollis.  She has been blogging for the past few years with her students.  She has created 4 tips which I think will really help provide a structure for students to use while commenting on others posts.

 

Here are the 4 tips she shares: 

1. Compliment the writer in a specific way!
2. Add new information
3. Make a connection
4. End with a question

She has also written a great post sharing about quality comments.

Here is another great post on Edublogs about Writing Quality Comments

Thanksgiving Resources

Thanksgiving Resources

This week I am going to give you a few links to help you find Thanksgiving Resources.  Please leave a comment below if you found a specific link to be really helpful as you integrate these resources in your classroom.

1. Free Tech for Teachers List of Thanksgiving Resources-This site has a short list of activities and web resources applicable to all ages

2. Cybrary Man List of Thanksgiving Resources -  This site has SMART Board lessons, web activities, and tons of other resources

   
   

Evernote in Education

Here is a great link explaining some ways Evernote can be used in Education - Evernote in Education

Thanksgiving Resources and Ted-Ed Lessons

I can't believe it is already November.  Thanksgiving is right around the corner and I wanted to highlight a great resource to use in your classroom.  Scholastic has many great resources, but their Thanksgiving resource is filled with multimedia to help reach every learner.  Please visit my post from last year to see some of the great resources available.  This site contains resources for K-8.

My second resource this week is Ted-Ed.  I know many of you utilize TED talks in your classroom.  This site has designed lessons around these videos to help you integrate them even easier.  Check out Ted-Ed to browse the many great resources available.  Here is a great video to introduce Ted-Ed.

Staying Organized

Organization is a key skill for all of us.  In the world we live in we are constantly bombarded with information.  I will show you a few tricks using 2 simple tools that may help you organize all the information you encounter daily.

The first piece that is key is to have a calendar where you can record all of your information in.  I prefer Google Calendar because it talks nicely with all of your devices and can be accessed anywhere/anytime.

The second tool you need is a task manager to help you keep track of your tasks.  Google Calendar conveniently has a task manager built in. 

 

The third tool that is important is some way to manage your tasks on your mobile device.  I use an app that works on android and apple products called Gotasks.

Digital Storytelling

Digital storytelling is an art and engages the viewer in the content versus merely sharing the information with them. I did some research for a class looking for some alternative presentation methods and focused my search on digital storytelling tools.  Below I have listed my top 4 along with a list of links to other resources.

Meograph

  

Capzles

Here is a link to an example of a Capzle for education - Capsule Example

Animoto 

Here is an example of a book trailer created using Animoto-Animoto Book Trailer

National Archives Digital Experience

 This site allows you to use resources from the National Digtial Archives to create a movie or poster.  Here is a quick example I created - Test Movie

Here is a list of other resources I have collected if you want to check out the other options available for digital storytelling - Digital Storytelling Links

SMART Board as an Instructional Tool

This week I am going to take a break from assessment tools and share some SMART Board resources with you.  The SMART Board can be a great instructional tool but sometimes we can get in a SMART Board "rut" and not know what else we can do with it.  My hope is with the following resources you will give you some ideas to jump-start your SMART Board use this year.

Below I have listed some links to videos featuring some of my favorite tools in SMART Notebook.  I also created a list of my top 11 sites to find free interactive SMART Board resources.

Topics:

·         Interactivity

o   Lesson Activity Toolkit

o   Lesson Activity Toolkit and Tools

o   Lesson Activity Builder

·         Video and Audio

o   Link to audio

o   Embed Youtube

·         Customizing and Using Lessons

·         Finding Lessons online-Top 11 sites for finding resources

Please leave a comment with any other great instructional ideas or resources I can add to the list.  Also, let me know if I can support you in any way with your use of the SMART Board in your classroom.