Our classroom has really been cooking up something special with our blogging. Last Friday, I posted a podcast that indicated we had been visited by 38 countries. By Monday morning, that number was up to 47!!
We keep a record of these countries by printing out and adding a 4 x 6 flag representation to the world map that hangs right outside our intermediate office. We want to thank you all for visiting and leaving comments, and Walmart wants to thank you because their sales of printer ink cartridges has increased since we began adding those flags to our blog back in February! =-)
The Blog Challenge 09 for this week is to add 10 new blogs to our blog roll and to separate our blog roll into at least two categories. This is a recipe that we can certainly follow.
We have a specific category for the Blogging Challenge09. Here you will find Mrs. Wyatt’s blog, Technology in Our Classroom. As we make connections with other classrooms, we are adding them under the category, Blogs We LOVE to Visit. We do have our favorites and are trying right now to connect with Room 8@Melville. The teacher posted a comment that they had never heard of Peeps!! We want to ship them some Peeps, so we are hoping to receive a mailing address through email to me at [email protected] in time for Easter.
Something that has really helped my students when visiting blogs is adding a description for each link. When students put their cursor on top of the link, a description of what kind of content, location, and grade level of the blog appears. I also like this feature because it minimizes my search time when I am trying to locate a specific post.
We are going to clean up our sidebar by listing fewer comments and posts. We are also going to clarify the category, Favorite Connections, by changing it to Hometown Connections. These links are to blogs with authors within our district. My students will be adding more blogs to this category very soon because now others teachers on our campus are wanting to know, “What is going on with this blogging?”, and, “How do we get involved?”
Quite a good recipe for the integration of technology applications, don’t you think?
Its Mr Webb here from New Zealand. I will be discussing the Peeps thing with my students this morning in class, and of course they will be thrilled (we’re going to google peeps as well so we know what it is!).
Our students were just as surprised as I was when I told them your students had no knowledge of peeps. Here in the states, they make peeps in the shape of Christmas trees, gingerbread men, and reindeer at Christmas time. At Easter you can find them as chicks, bunnies, and just lately I found pigs at Walmart. Do you guys have a discount store like Walmart there in Australia? I will be sending you a personal email to get your mailing address. We are going to get these in the mail asap. My technology director is supporting this action and should make things go smoothly. We will try to round up enough for everyone. I read on one of your student’s comments that you have 24 in your classroom. Look for my email.