Looking for ideas for your class blog? Or wanting to connect with classes in other countries?
The good news is we now have a Check Out These Class blogs page on The Edublogger thanks to everyone who shared their class blog URLs. I’ve sort class blogs based on Grade/Year/Age of students and subject areas to make the task of locating ones that interest you easier.
Here’s a few ideas I grabbed from visiting the class blogs:
- Over on Mrs Poulin’s blog they’ve been embedding LookyBooks into posts so the students can read picture books on their blog
- Mr Lund has used a screenshot of his class blog’s Google Analytics map overlay to show parents and students how it has only taken three months for the blog to have an International audience reaching four continents.
- MadWords Now have cleverly embedded a widget from Box.net in their blog sidebar so students can easily download important handouts from one convenient location.
- Splash In made a really big splash with their great use of Bubbleshare embedded in posts.
- Meanwhile Class 4D did some smart thinking and scanned their written stories to create images which they uploaded to their class blog and embedded into a post using a picture gallery.
- Ms. Kreul’s class blog took me for a cool tour of their class by creatively using of FlickRSLiDR widget embedded in their side bar.
I noticed that I wasn’t the only one getting ideas from visiting the class blogs. GWA Grade 5 students blog used it to compiled a short list class blogs that caught their eye to start a discussion on educational blogs.
FINAL THOUGHTS
There’s still time to have your class blog added to our list of class blogs. Just leave your class blog details in the comments of the Calling All CLASS blogs…Please Share Your Blog URL With Us! post.
For those of you who did leave your class blog details — Can you please check out the Check Out These Class blogs page? Please make sure the link to your blog is working properly and I’ve got the details correct. Leave a comment on this post if I need to make any amendments.
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16 Comments So Far»
I don’t have an Edublog blog, I use a Drupal-made blog privately served but I have a comment. I was just looking at some of the classblogs on the Class Blog List you are compiling and I just wanted to say I find the pop-up ads really annoying, distracting and intrusive. Some of the pop-ups, though not offensive were very age-inappropriate for young bloggers (like references to colleges, other hosting sites etc.) I know you need to make money but if I did have an Edublog blog I find a new host.
Just my opinion, N.
Sue,
Thanks for mentioning MadWordsNow in your list! I will be writing a posting for the kids to gain some perspective of what The Edublogger is, and why I am so thrilled to see “us” included!
Many thanks,
Tim
PS: Although I only publish student comments so that the kids continue to feel ownership in the MadWordsNow blog, I always welcome and read with great interest the comments of other teachers. The more, the merrier, truly!
Mr. Madden,
Thanks for a great blog. I like your style of posting – focusing on things that would interest your students.
I was intrigued by your comment that you don’t post comments from other teachers – being new to the blogging world, I love the ownership my students have for our blog, but I also have seen a tremendous benefit from other people’s comments.
I was hoping your would explain your thoughts a little bit more. Thanks!
-Mr. Lund
I am very happy, to see how much you can learn with blogs, you can read opinions and learn from them .
Blogs, are entersting and positive and diferents aspects . I like read all the coments.
-veronica
Mr. Lund,
All right, all right, you have found me out! I haven’t actually published enough teacher comments on either of my student blogs to get a valid perspective.
My fear is that the kids will feel less ownership if they begin to see adults making comments on the blogs. I suppose that I could do a posting to find out what the students think about this idea.
What has your–or other reader’s–experience been with publishing teacher comments on your class/student blogs?
-Tim Madden
PS: I lived in Canton, IL, when I was nine!
@Nancy Thanks for sharing your opinion. Here is Jame Farmer’s comment for Edublogs Forum “there will be another development on this shortly, part of which will allow supporters to turn off ads on student blogs, please bear with us and will be providing an update soon”.
@Mr Madden Glad you were pleased your class blog recieved a mention Tim. You use of box.net widget was a great way for me to show readers how you can use them. I’ve noticed visiting blogs this week that people have seen your example and are using it for their own blogs. Will be interested in what you tell your students (as you should have seen what Paul Bogush told his about me – read Kayla109’s comment)
Regarding comments – I’ve seen from the student blogging competition that comments from students or adults from other countries really inspired the student bloggers. Many of them would follow the comments from their blog to the commenter’s blog and then engage in conversations with the blogger. I had a student come to my blog. Read a comment by a University lecturer and follow that comment to the University lecturer’s blog to engage in a debate with her on that particular topic. Was an amazing discussion – total ownership by the student (who was only 12).
@Daniel Lund Good question for Tim
I’ve added my comment above.
@jvveronica I found my readers learn considerably more by reading all the comments that people leave than just reading my posts. Often they will follow the comments across to the blogs to check them out as well.
Sue,
Next week, I will be giving my middle school’s English department a brief intro on creating teacher blogs.
To add a bit of juicy validity to this, I would like to create a Jing using your post (this post) that mentions my blog, and share it with the other teachers, as well as my administrators.
I would love to be able to tell them how many visitors you have received and how many feed subscribers The Edublogger currently reaches.
The more evidence of blog impact, the better!
Thanks,
Tim
@Tim No problem regarding the information. Sounds like an interesting presentation and I will be keen to hear how it goes.
Currently there is 2113 Subscribers via Feedburner with most people using Google Reader to subscribe with. There is also a large number who prefer by email – 424 by email.
Unlike most blogs I would say the site has a high number of people who are reading by visiting the blog. Currently daily site visits are between 300 to 600 per day.
For a comparison my personal blog:
Site visits per day fluctuate between 30 to 100 per day. I have 822 subscribers.
Please let me know what other information you would like or if you would like me to ask the readers to answer any questions for the presentation. Best of luck.
Sue,
Thanks for your quick response. The numbers you cited will impress and alert people to how much ground a blog is capable of covering.
As far as questions about the presentation, yes, any advice people may have regarding introducing teachers to blog creation (and convincing teachers how powerful a teacher blog is capable of becoming).
So, I am open to reading any experiences, both negative and positive, that can help me avoid stumbling around and damaging potential enthusiasm.
Again, Sue, thanks for the zippy comment!
-Tim
Sue,
Thanks for your quick response. The numbers you cited will impress and alert people to how much ground a blog is capable of covering.
As far as questions about the presentation, yes, any advice people may have regarding introducing teachers to blog creation (and convincing teachers how powerful a teacher blog is capable of becoming).
So, I am open to reading any experiences, both negative and positive, that can help me avoid stumbling around and damaging potential enthusiasm.
Again, Sue, thanks for the zippy comment!
-Tim
Sue-
Thanks for including the Upper House blog in the primary section! I noticed that the hyperlink was broken though, and the word “grader” should read “grades”. Here’s the url again: http://upperhouse.edublogs.org.
Again, thanks a lot for adding us to your list!
Smiles,
Ana =)
Thanks Ana – I either missed adding the link or yours was one of the blogs where I had trouble with the link.. I’ve made the changes so can I get you to check and make sure it is fine?
No problem about adding your blog to the list. Really pleased to have a wide range of blogs for people to check out.
I agree with Nancy above in regards to the advertisements. To me, the advertisements hyperlinked to words (like education and schools) now make Edublogs unusable in their “free” format. I like the product but feel like I am being forced to pay. I understand the need to raise funds, but in this economic climate, I will spend some time looking for alternatives to Edublogs. That’s too bad, as I spent a lot of time this summer teaching teachers how to use Edublogs, and at that time the advertisement wasn’t viral.
wow! there’s lots of people in cluster map. the most is S. and N. America and Africa. hooray someone is in S. korea
Thanks for your feedback Bill. You can read more about the discussion here in the forum. As Andrew (cto) says “If you have any suggestions on how we could support Edublogs without advertising or requiring blogs to be upgraded to remove advertising we’d definitely love to hear them”.
Hi Susan,
My students are blogging at http://www.rism.ac.th/class/hs/davidw
What is slightly special about this blog is that the subject matter is high school mathematics, and that the students are responsible for conveying that mathematics online. This has required them to learn how to create equation images and insert them into their posts.
Nice list of blogs.
Dave
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