Blogging Formats and Platforms

There are different formats teachers can set up for blogging in the classroom including: Teacher blogs, Class Discussion blogs and Student blogs. There are also different platforms. This post will discuss a combination of both topics.

Teacher blogs: I have utilized this blog as a vehicle to share what I did in the classroom in regards to technology integration. I shared it via Twitter, and with job applications. Back in the day, I had a good following, but once I quite posting and sharing, that fell off. Understandably. My goal was just to share as much as possible the things I helped teachers with and did myself in the classroom.

The platform I use is Blogger, and having used it for so many years, it is really easy for me to use. One downside is I included a lot of pictures from my Google Drive, and since I left that position, the pictures no longer appear. For me, this Teacher blog will be my vehicle for sharing what I do with the world. I don't plan on using it for students to read/learn from in regard to our class curriculum.

Class Discussion blogs: In the past, I usually used discussion threads in Moodle, which would be similar to the discussion threads available in BlackBoard. Students could comment on each other, and I could easily see what they wrote. It was very nice for me to be able to see what everyone posted in one place, and have control over deleting comments if necessary - which I rarely had to do. It was a safe space and I didn't have to worry about things being shared outside the classroom.

Student blogs: While I never had a student blog in my own classroom, I assisted many other teachers in creating them for their classrooms. At two schools, I helped the Language Arts teachers and students set up individual Blogger blogs where they posted all their writing. The idea was the student could write, revise, share, comment etc with their classmates. They could customize them and add photos as well. Which is where we ran into some problems with students putting full names and photos on their blogs. It was a very challenging situation to manage, and I think that turned me off to student blogs. We then used KidBlog, which at the time was free, to help keep the blog posts in the classroom, yet still allow for students to comment on each others.

That format seemed to work much better for privacy purposes. I guess privacy, managing student sharing and commenting, and the general challenge of keeping track of all of this are the reasons I have not used Student blogs in my own classroom. Using BlackBoard for student blog posts is a halfway point I could explore. As I learn more about using BlackBoard, I will have to keep this in mind. 

Blogging in the Classroom

As I wrote the title to this blog post, I realized that many years ago, I actually presented on this topic at the Iowa 1:1 conference - strange how that slipped my mind until I wrote it. At the time, I was teaching computer classes to K-3 grade students, and supporting the teachers in integrating technology into their classrooms. Here is a copy of the presentation.

 At the same time, I was helping the 6th grade teachers and students create student blogs on Blogger for their Language Arts class. This was something I had also helped Pewaukee Middle school Language Arts teachers and students do do. Yet as I transitioned into teaching Middle School Social Studies classes, I never had the students create a blog. I guess I never saw a reason to do it.

Yet, I am very much in favor of students creating portfolios of their learning, especially when it shows a progression of work, or a compilation of skills. This past year, I have used Google Slides as the vehicle for portfolios. Mostly though, they were portfolios for just the student and myself to see. It was an easy way to show all their work in one place, hosted in Classroom so I could always access it, and could incorporate photos, videos and writing. All the things you can do on a blog. As I write this, I feel I need to revisit my thoughts on student blogging and delve a little deeper into the possibilities it could bring.

Sharing work with a larger audience, including classmates and parents, would be one advantage. Another advantage, is sharing work with the world at large (with their permission) as I do on this blog and had done extensively through Twitter - a platform I need to return to.

For in sharing with the world at large, you have a tremendous impact by sharing ideas, teaching others new things, and in return, bringing "home" new ideas to help student succeed in the classroom.

I think in the past, I always associated student blogs with the Language Arts focus of write, revise, share, revise etc. I wasn't looking at it as a portfolio, which is what this blog is. I'm starting to like the idea of a blog as a portfolio and will have to start tumbling ideas around in my head for next year.

4 C's of 21st Century Skills

When it comes to both engaging students in learning and providing opportunities for higher level thinking, I love basing my lessons on the 4 C's of 21st Century Skills:

Critical Thinking

Creativity

Collaboration

Communication

Below is a slide show with examples of how students have expressed their learning with these skills. 

Equity in the Classroom

Our class was discussing equality versus equity and I asked them to create something with their opinion of how we achieve equity in the classroom. Their responses are always insightful! Here are a couple of them:

Student choice has always been an integral way I work towards equity in the classroom. When students can choose what they want to learn about, chose the method for learning, and the product produced, I feel their needs are better met. Different learning styles are accounted for, as are interests, abilities. Students are engaged in their learning as they have some control of it and they are receptive to it. 

The work time given in class is crucial to success. During this time, I can individually conference with students, provide specific help, direction and feedback.  Student achievement is higher and students are enjoying learning. When I reflect on these situations I only see positive student growth, which supports my continued application in the classroom. 

Flexible Room Arrangements

When another teacher asked me if I minded teaching in a classroom with desks instead of tables, I immediately responded that I would love teaching with desks again. Desks offer so much flexibility for different arrangements to suite the learning situation.

We have moved desks around to create landforms, and simulate a court room. Some days the desks are in single rows, double rows, or groups of four. Some days the desks are wherever the students move them!

The ebb and flow of a classroom benefits greatly when you have the ability to move desks around, and the students enjoy the ability to work both independently in single rows, with a partner in double rows, and with a group of four. Having desks means they can chose these options and student choice is a main way I develop relationships with students.

Here we were working in self-selected groups. You can see how each period of students arranged the desks differently. Having a large classroom space helped as well, but even in smaller rooms, the flexibility of desks allows for great learning.

Formative Assessment Through Pictures

How do I assess learning when students are not strong readers and writers? With pictures and questions!

Not all students feel confident or comfortable with writing about their learning. That doesn't mean they aren't paying attention, nor learning. To help them be successful in the classroom, I have them share their learning with me via pictures and oral answers to questions. This also helps build trust between us when they know I am willing to meet them where they are at.

I actually like this method so much, that I routinely have students draw pictures to explain their learning. Whether they prefer to draw on paper or digitally, I find engagement is high, and learning is expressed.

Creating comic strips is another way for them to visually show me their ideas and learning.

Student Communication with Google Docs

As a district that uses the Google Suite of products in our classrooms, I have found many ways to capitalize on the ability to share documents with other people.

Students collaboratively work on assignments with each other, I can share a document template for them to work on, and I can communicate both with them and with families more easily. Hosting all our daily notes, assignments, and other resources on our Google Sites Classroom website helped keep everyone informed, provided a place for students to find work when they were absent, and allowed for review of information at any time.

It has also helped with individual student communication in a couple of ways. For a student with very limited English Language skills, I was able to use the translating tool in Google Docs to translate documents for her to read. She could also type responses in Spanish, and then I could translate them back to English. This tool helped bridge communication and build a relationship. By the end of the semester, she was comfortable saying short sentences to me in English, versus the one-word answers she previously used.

Another occasion presented itself where I was able to provide daily feedback on a student via a shared Google document.

Amongst the many learning styles we have in the classroom, we also have students with different learning abilities. Coupled with that are students with various disabilities who may have difficultly attending class.

One student in particular was having a hard time in class; each day exhibited a different behavior and attention span. Talking to the student at the end of each class, and speaking with the Special Education teacher and parents weren't making much of a difference.

Ultimately, the goal was to find a way to keep the student in the classroom despite the suggestion to do otherwise. Everyone agreed to try a behavior checklist that the student would bring to class each day. We wanted him to have that responsibility, but I also quickly saw that I needed a spot to write comments on the particulars of how the day went.

Using the checklist as a start, I created a Google Sheets file that I shared with the Special Education Teacher and parent. Each day, as the student and I completed his checklist, I duplicated the information on the spreadsheet and added in my comments. The student quickly came to enjoy having me do this, especially on the days he did well in class.

Pretty soon, the good days far outnumbered the not so good days, and everyone was kept informed as to how things were going. This communication tool was a real benefit to everyone involved and was even part of the re-evaluation meeting we had at the end of the school year.

For myself, I was really happy to see the positive impact it had on the student himself and our relationship in class. This relationship extended outside of class and he would stop by to see me each morning to find out what we were going to be doing - an added bonus as I think this helped prepare him for what to expect each day.

Role Playing

Anytime you can get the students out of their seats and moving is a win. Add in a role play with a story and you are doubling your chances they will remember the lesson! All students get a chance to participate and they really enjoy the movement, laughter and activity. They physically participate in the learning.

I especially like role plays that involve very little set up, and can be modified, stopped and started easily. Learning about the regions of Europe provides a great opportunity for role playing.

When you compare the United States to Europe, Europe has so many distinct cultures. Why is that? One reason is the landforms that separated people.

To role play this lesson, I introduced the topic of the many cultures.

We then rearrange the room as such: 

The chairs are the Alps and the open spaces are the Danube River. 

 

Students sit on the floor on various sides of the mountains (desks) and move their way around the room on the river (floor) as I discuss trade, weather, ease of movement etc. 

In addition to physically learning about the isolation of some European cultures, we have a great time laughing and moving about the classroom. 

Reading With a Purpose

One of my go-to resources for Social Studies was Junior Scholastic. The magazine arrived monthly and always had articles relevant to what we were studying in the the classroom - both for Human Geography and United States History.

One article we read during our European Unit was about Surviving Kristallnacht.

The students read with a purpose: What was the author trying to get across to the reader. They had to give evidence and decide upon the viewpoint the author had about the topic, and what she used to get her viewpoint across. Here are the specific directions.

When studying Russia, we used a Sports Illustrated interview with the IOC president and a CNN article to learn about bias in writing. This is such an important skills to learn when reading and/or listening to current event stories in the news. Here are the specific directions.

Combining ELA Standards in Social Studies Curriculum

One of my goals as a Social Studies teacher was to integrate English Language Arts standards into the curriculum. We wrote argument essays, persuasive pieces, small moment writing and close reads.

When learning about the United States, we learned about reliable web resources and persuasive writing to write a letter to our parents persuading them to visit a certain state. The students researched their state's landforms and attractions, provided details about them, and created a picture collage for added persuasion.

To help them learn how to write persuasively, the assignment was scaffolding, each day adding another skill to learn. The final directions are here if you are interested. 

Students Helping Students

Whatever unit we are studying, an activity I do from time to time is have the students create a learning game for the rest of class. Whether it is Jeopardy questions, Kahoot questions, or matching games, the students work alone or together to create something.

When studying the United States, one thing is for sure, you will need to know the name and location of the 50 states. To help study for our test, one of the students made a game using Google Slides for his classmates to study from. I have posted the game below - but note that the animations don't work correctly when presented this way. You can get the jist of it though.

The Land of Opportunity

Before we began learning about other regions of the world, we discussed how America is seen as the Land of Opportunity and why. The students created their own version of what this means to them. We then created a map of the US to display our pictures and writings.

Not only was this a great way to culminate our learning about the United States, and compare the United States to other regions of the world, it was another way to allow student voice to come through in the classroom. Additionally, I learned a little bit more about each student as they created their document in the manner of their choice.

 

Map Reading Activities

As our 7th grade Social Studies curriculum focused on geography, we started the year learning to read maps. Below are some of the activities we did to learn about landforms, maps, latitude and longitude. We then culminated our learning by creating our own island and labeling landforms locations with latitude and longitude coordinates. Student's love the creative freedom involved and show great understanding of the topic.

I am a fan of the "so what" of what we are learning about, and therefore, the students had to explain how their landforms affected the people who live near them (something we had been learning about as well.)

While learning about landforms, I created a flipped lesson about them and used real paper maps - almost ancient history these days. Please see pictures of both below, including student responses to the video.

Flipped Learning

Flipped learning - what is that? According to the Flipped Learning Network website,

"What is Flipped Learning? Flipped Learning occurs when direct instruction is moved from the group teaching space to the individual learning environment. Class time is then used for higher order, active problem solving by students and one-to-one or small group interactions with the teacher"

The reason I incorporate this in our classroom is to provide more class time to work with the information we are learning. Since this doesn't fit all learning styles, however, right now I am only doing one or two per unit. Here is our latest example:Climate and Landforms of the Midwest.

How do our students feel about this? Here are some of the comments they have left me:

"These videos are still awesome and it feels cool to LISTEN to your homework instead of reading it so nice job! ;)"

"I like it when you put these videos for homework. I like it because it lets us go at out own pace"

"These are a very good way to doing it. Instead of sharing this in class, just put it on the website! Its perfect."

"I really like taking notes from videos like this. I like them because I can pause and go back into the video if I need to hear something again or if I need to write something down. I also like how you include pictures of what you are explaining about. Lastly, I like having notes in this format to study from! I think this is a great way to get notes done, homework done, and to study for a test!"

Using Maps

We have spent a lot of time using maps, large paper ones in class, maps at home, maps in our textbook. These maps tell us climate zones, directions, tourist attractions, animal habitats, economic zones and country borders. The maps we used at home included Google Maps, road maps and weather maps. Hopefully we can all appreciate the use of maps outside of Social Studies class!

The "So What" of What We Are Learning

For both my Social Studies class and my current Business Law class, I want the students to see the connection between what we are learning and how it impacts many different facets of life. We discussed it, took notes on it, reviewed it, and ultimately tested on it.

For Business Law, we analyze each topic and how it impacts the government, citizens/consumers, businesses/artists, and employees. For each group of people, the students need to state the impact and then explain it.

For Social Studies classes, we discussed the impact of the topic on the government, economy, environment, and foreign affairs. Since I taught both 7th and 8th grade Social Studies to the same students, we were able to carry this concept through both years of studies.

A great introduction to this topic is the Star Wars movie. Yes, it too can be analyzed for impact on the government, economy, environment, and foreign affairs. They could even 4 square their  summer break!

Almost every student is successful in identifying the correct connections, and explaining them as well. The 4 Square is embedded in the unit's daily work, so we discuss it almost daily. Additionally, this format gives us a consistent way to organize information from unit to unit, which benefits student learning.

Here is an example of some of the 4 squares we created in 7th grade geography. Note: it does not include the explanations.

Real Life Decision Making and an Argument Essay

A lot of what we learn in class does not directly impact the students or someone they know. There were two instances when current events had a direct impact on someone they knew. One was the civil unrest in Syria as we had a Syrian family with relatives there. The mom came to talk to me about the horrors going on, and asked me to make sure we discussed the positive things about the people in that country as well as the negativity in the news - which we did.

A second situation involved our former Superintendent. He had been doing mission work in South Sudan for a few years, and was debating returning for another visit. However, the political climate there was uncertain as well. Since all the students knew him well being that it was a very small school district, we spent two weeks learning about South Sudan and the civil unrest going on, learning about his mission work and how it benefited the people there, reading his blog and inviting him in for a visit.

Throughout all of this, students took notes with the essential question in mind: should he return for another trip.

All year we had been learning how to write argument essays, and this was another perfect opportunity for them to practice their writing with a real-life situation on the balance. While we had done meaty outlines of argument writing, we hadn't fully fleshed one out and this gave us a good chance to do so.

We moved through the steps of research, writing an introduction, using text evidence, deciding on a thesis and organizing information, transition sentences, body paragraphs, counter arguments, and conclusions. We did peer editing and sent them on to the superintendent to help him make a choice.

He did ultimately return to his mission work in South Sudan, though I believe it was a year later after things had settled down. In the end, the students took part in real-life decision making.

Book Connections

In Middle School, I loved the fact that each student had an independent reading book for Language Arts class, or at least had a book they were reading in Language Arts class. That meant I could require they bring a book to class. While this was helpful for "I'm finished" time, it was also a way to help make connections between our current unit of study and other situations.

What kind of questions did I have the students answer to make connections? Here are a few examples. Some were easier than others to answers, and some really took some stretching. In one case, the student's parent even emailed me. It turns out the character never left her bedroom, so how could she experience her environment? We improvised and had the student write about the environment of her bedroom, or what she saw out the window.

Sample questions and unit in discussion:

United States Economics

1. Find an example of economics in your book and explain it.
2. Analyze this example for how it affects the character - explain.
3. Is this a positive or negative impact on the character? Explain
4. How will this affect the character’s future? Explain

Europe (which has had many different types of governments over the years):

1. Explain how government/rules affects your character(s)
2. Is this positive or negative? Explain
3. If your character could change something about this, what would they change and why?

India Caste System

1. Are the characters in your book rich or poor? How do you know? Give details
2. Explain and examine: How can you be rich without money? What do most people think?

Africa - Decision Making (Our Superintendent was planning to do mission work in Sudan and we were discussing if he should go or not given the political climate there.)

1. In your book, find a situation where a character has to make a decision. 
2. Explain the plot that is going on around this situation and what decision they need to make.
3. Tell me about the character involved, what is their role in your story?
4. How do they make their decision? What steps do they take?
5. Could you have predicted the decision they make based on past events or your character’s motivations? If so, explain, if not, explain.

Analyze a Picture

One of the critical thinking activities I enjoy using is analyzing a picture. There are pictures to match just about any unit you are studying.

Europe has many forms of government, and I wanted the students to think about the "so what" in regard to governments. What do governments do for us, how do they affect our daily lives?

Here is the teaching picture I used in class:

Here is an example of student's work for this assignment. You'll notice that we are using a shared Google Slide Show. I like the ability to put this out for students to edit and combine their work. Once everyone has finished their part, the rest of the class benefits from increased view points. We use it not only to show learning, but to record inquiry as well.

Symbaloo - Easy Way to Share Classroom Links

I loved the ability to share all our classroom links on one page, and Symbaloo offers a visually appealing, easy to use format for doing so. Students can quickly find links. Because I posted many links in the daily notes section of our class website, I used Symbaloo for links that we would use more often, so the students did not have to scroll backwards through the daily notes.

Here is the live link if you would like to use some of these resources.

Flipped Classroom Lesson Example

In order to create more time in the classroom for learner-centered activities, once in awhile I like to post a "lecture" lesson as homework - sometimes called a flipped lesson. For this lesson, I have used some sort of Web 2.0 technology to record my lesson, and have then posted it to our class website or Google Classroom depending on which is available for our class.

The students access the directions and link, and take notes as instructed. This offers a great opportunity for them to pause and review the video as desired. No need to try and keep up with the teacher. It also freed up class time to work more in depth with the information presented.

Not all students, however, have the time to do this at home due to activity schedules and family responsibilities, or internet access. To accommodate those students, I build in time during the week where they can access it and takes notes in class.

Below is what they see on our class website, here is a link to the video. 

Taking Risks

We want our students to take risks, yet are we as teachers willing to take risks? This was a question set forth on Twitter one day and our principal challenged us to accept.

If we want our students to take risks, calculated or not, we as teachers really need to learn to take them as well. I rose to the challenge and decided my risk would be the chance of chaos, or it could be the chance for fun and learning.

The Civil War was a big risk for America and that also provided two great opportunities for me to add in some kinesthetic learning so to speak. I had already devised a team game for the entire unit. Each team would be part of the North or South. As their group completed activities, they earned points. Now I had a couple of groups who were not as motivated academically and almost always scored the lowest points. One day I brought in a tug-of-war rope from gym class and told them they could challenge any team they wanted, and the winning team would earn points.

Not only was this motivational for them, but really reinforced the tug-of-war between the North and the South for battles, land and freedom. It was so successful, that we kept the rope in the room for two weeks and any team could challenge any team. No, nothing broke, no one got hurt and we only disturbed one class once - the risk was worth it!

The second risk I took happened after reading Henry's Freedom Box - a picture book about a slave who mails himself north to freedom. We didn't have a box, but we did have the nice white cabinets you see in the picture above. The bottom right cabinet was a pretty good size, and we had a contest between the classes to see who could stuff as many people in the cabinet as possible. While loosely related to the book, it emphasized the tight quarters of slave ships and the sense of being stuck in a box for what seems like eternity. One of our students receiving special education services, who usually would not participate in anything, was so intrigued he had to try it himself, but by himself.

Technology in the Classroom for the Student and Teacher

As I look at my blog, I am embarrassed that I haven't posted anything since (gasp) June of 2012. Eeek! It isn't that I haven't been using technology, I have; I am just really busy learning a new curriculum. In fact, this month I am finally teaching everything for the second time and can evaluate the lessons, tweek them, improve them etc.

In the meantime, I did present the following presentation at the Wisconsin WEMTA conference last Spring. At the time, I decided to use that as a portfolio for keeping track of the neat things we do in the classroom. That hasn't worked, so I am returning to my blog.

My presentation included using technology as a teacher with a class website, Google Docs and other resources, along with the technology the students use in my class. We are a 1:1 district and this year every student has a Chromebook that loads in 8 seconds, so we tend to take technology for granted. But I remain steadfast in using technology when it improves a lesson, not just to replace pencil and paper. Therefore, we use it sporadically and usually with a choice of non-tech use also.

Enough rambling, please enjoy browsing through my presentation.