Week Twelve: School's Site

I checked out the Wenatchee School District website and I really like it. It has a lot of links and tabs and information. There are links to each individual schools website from the district website. Within each school's site are a list of teachers for each grade or subject and link to their blog if they have one. There are newsletters and calendars; events; services; employment; links for students, parents, and teachers; videos and pictures; and so much more. This website is so much more detailed than my little private school's website ever was!

Week Ten: Read and Comment on a Class Blog

I'm not sure that it will come through before class, but I commented on Mrs. Ida's Blog.

Mrs. Ida's blog has a lot of resources and some really cool posts. I picked this one to comment on because I really connected to it. I like the idea of having students present their material this way. It's kind of like Prof. Adair's students research projects that they are allowed to create and present as additional content. It allows the students to learn about something that is interesting to them and then teach it! And I personally believe that that is the best way to learn -- to teach.

Mrs. Ida's post didn't really discuss the idea, she just put it out there. I contributed by expanding on it and, hopefully, providing a different view on it than maybe she had thought of at first.

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I found another blog that I really like! This one is from a school in the Wenatchee School District where I hope to end up. The teacher has a lot of information on her blog regarding the weekly happenings of the class, assignments, and other events that happen--planned or not. I commented a post that tells how the class was reading a story to learn about royalty and created a poster of a dragon to remind themselves to be respectful and polite--no whining!

Reflection #1: Blogging and ELL Students

In one of my TELL classes, the professor was telling us how she's used blogs to connect with other classes who are learning English. I think that this is an amazing idea. It helps the students to practice their English in practical ways where communication and understanding is necessary. It's one thing to talk to your teacher, but it's another to talk to other students, in a different classroom--possibly in a different country.

It could work something like the blog that Alison reviewed where there was one blog site, but all the students were reading the same book and creating a project together. There is one end goal, or one project, that both classrooms can work on and share their information. I think that my favourite example of this was a multicultural culinary blog. The students, in groups of 2-4, the students had to find different restaurants of varying ethnic backgrounds and take some photos of their food and then review the and post the photos on the blog. It was really interesting, and it got the students talking and using English in a functional way.

Week Five: Review of a Classroom Blog

I looked at the Newtown High School Blog. I really like it. It has a lot of information, at least one blog post daily. Usually, multiple from different groups. I like th design and I like that they include photos on most posts. It could have been really easy for this to be a really daunting page, with a lot of information and no real connection to anything else, just a a mess; but it's not. It's really well organized and easy to navigate.

The blog gives the school a good name. It looks like they are well put together and cared for/about because their blog is. First impressions really are important.

I like the post in the Culinary section titled Trash to Treasure. It's short, to the point, yet poignant.