PSA and Praise

If you've tried to comment here at A Year of Reading and have been frustrated when your comment disappeared before you submitted it,

or if you read our note about how long our blog kept loading and in order for your comment not to get lost you should stop the load before commenting (what a hassle),

or if you tried to access our archives by using the turn-down triangles and got...nothing...

I want you to know that OUR BLOG IS FIXED!

YAY!

Here's how it got fixed and the PSA and praise.

First, I spent time googling these problems. Then, I spent time searching Blogger help forums. Finally, in frustration, I tweeted Blogger. And @irsahindesigns answered. He answered, he stayed with me until every problem was resolved, and he didn't judge me (at least not in public) when one of the problems was a complete and total forehead slap of a user error.

Your blog loads for almost a minute each time you open it? Look for third party plugins or widgets. In our case, it was the SiteMeter plugin I added in 2006 (and which we haven't used for years).

Your archives don't work? Remove the widget and then put it back in.

There's a whole lot about Twitter that's a hot mess right now, and I'm not advocating that you use Twitter to find the solution to life's every problem. But in this case, it worked. Here's to @irsahindesigns, and here's to the proof that Twitter can make the world...or at least our blog...work a little better!

Learning About Blogging!

We are getting ready to start our blogs at Kidblogs this week. These blogs will be closed to our classroom as students learn the power of blogging and connecting with others through writing.  This week, we'll spend much of our writing workshop time learning about blogging.


Learning to Study
One of my goals for the first six weeks of school is learning the power of study and mentor texts as writers. During these first six weeks, I want my students to learn to live their lives as writers, noticing all they can. And I also want them to begin to learn the power of mentors.  Studying quality texts and thinking "I'd like to do that in my writing." will be important throughout the year.  Our conversations this week will build on the bits we've already talked about in the area of study and mentor texts.

At the beginning of the week, we'll take a look at some blogs. We'll talk about the following questions:

What is a blog?
What is a blog post?
What is possible in a blog posts?
What makes an effective blog post?
How is this blogger unique?
What is the focus of this person's blog?
What can we learn from this blogger?

We'll take a look at a variety of blogs and blog posts written by kid bloggers. Some blogs we'll look at will be:
Behind the Scenes of the Cooperstown Bat Factory
DIY Locker Door
5 Interesting Facts about Electric Eels
Sunny Days
Baseball with Matt Blog
Tissue Flower Kit
This Kid Reviews Books
Lil Dog Whisperer

(I've found some of these on Blogs By Kids, which is a great resource for teachers looking for blog posts by kids.)

Paper Blogging
After some study, we'll do some practice.  I didn't buy into practice until I read Lee Kolbert's post on Paper Blogging and Learning to Comment a few years ago. I've followed her thinking for the past few years and it's led to some great blogging. We'll take a few days creating paper blog posts and we'll comment on each with sticky notes. This will take a few days but I've found that after this, kids are ready to blog and anxious to share their writing in a digital space!

Learning to Comment
Before we comment on the paper blogs, we'll watch this video by Mrs. Yolis's 3rd grade class. I have used it for a few years and it is a great conversation starter about good commenting.

Of course, we'll continue to build on this initial conversation but I know that commenting is as important as posting so I want kids to see what's possible in a comment. This video is part of a blog post on Mrs. Yolis's Classroom Blog: How to Compose a Quality Comment.

Moving Forward
We'll continue to study mentor blogs throughout the year as an integrated part of our writing. We'll look at classroom blogs as we work together to tell our classroom story.  We'll look at blog series such as Celebrate This Week, Poetry Friday,  and It's Monday! What Are You Reading?. These will serve as invitations for students who want to focus on their blog writing more seriously.  (I'll show them two series that past students have created--Ben's Book Reviews and Time to Interview.  We'll talk about Blog challenges and blog plans. I might eventually share this blog schedule to start the conversation about the importance of planning as a writer.

I'm anxious to see where this group of students goes with blogging. I am always amazed and surprised by all that kids find to do in the digital world as writers and this first step is always an exciting one.

This post was cross posted to Click Here Next.

Blogs to Follow

It was a great first week of school and we are ready to start thinking about publishing online. This summer, I thought through the pieces I wanted for my 4th grade writers. I am laughing now because it seemed much more doable in July!  I know it is doable, I just need to take steps in the first six weeks of school and be thoughtful about how we get everything in place.

I want my students to be connected writers AND I also want them to be connected readers.  This week, we'll start doing some online reading. As a shared experience, I want to spend time with students reading blogs and understanding the whole genre of blogging.  I want them to see a variety of blogs, to see what is possible, to learn about commenting, etc.  So, I put out a request on Twitter, asking for classroom blogs that my class might follow. I got a great list from teachers everywhere. I also found some great blogs by kids and/or for kids that I'll add to the collection. I am trying to keep a list for now as I know we'll find some we revisit more often.  Many are just getting started as it is the beginning of the year. Others are older and haven't had new postings for a while. But all of the blogs on this list will help students begin to see the possibilities in blogging. This week will be about immersing ourselves in blogs and what they are about.   It will be about seeing the possibilities open up as we learn from and with people all over the world.

This is the list of blogs I have so far. Thanks to everyone for sharing their blogs with me on Twitter. If you have a classroom blog or student blog you'd like to add, just leave it in the comments. I had a great time pulling this list together--so much to learn from each blog that I visited!

THE SHINY RED APPLE (4th Grade) 

ANNA'S AMAZING LEARNERS (5 year olds in New Zealand)

POTENTIAL AND POSSIBILITIES 

ROOM 17 PINEHILL SCHOOL (New Zealand) 

MRS. YOLLIS'S 3RD GRADE BLOG  (California)

LIL' DOG WHISPERER 

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC KIDS' BLOGS

LAURA'S LIFE (7th Grader, Indiana) 

GLOSONBLOG (Social Media, Blogging and Tech Tips from 14 yo in Malaysia)

HAGAN'S WORLD OF AWESOME  (6 year old in Iowa) 

MRS. DAUB'S DUDES AND DUDETTES(4th Grade Classroom Blog) 

THE HOWLIN' GOOD TIMES OF ROOM 226 (4th Grade Classroom Blog)

CRAYONS AND PENCILS (6th Graders) 

SPORTS ILLUSTRATED KIDS BLOGS 

ABI'S BLOG (9 year old in Beijing) 

AMELIE'S ANIMAL BLOG (5 year old in Australia) 

AVA'S AWESOME BLOG (Australia)

EM'S CANVAS 

CLASSROOM 2 KIDS (Grade 2, British Columbia, Canada) 

LEARNING HUB 3 @ STONEFIELDS SCHOOL (5-8 year olds in New Zealand)

MR. C's CLASS BLOG http://mrcsclassblog.blogspot.com/

MRS. CASSIDY'S CLASSROOM BLOG (Grade 1)

THE SKINNY (5th Grade) 

MISS ALANIZ'S CLASSROOM BLOG (4th Grade) 

GRADE 5/MRS. TERBORG'S CLASS @RIVERSTONE 

20 SOMETHING KIDS AND 1 KOOKY TEACHER (5th Grade, Missouri) 

MRS. FREDERICKSON'S CLASS BLOG (Grade 6) 

...ALWAYS LEARNING...(5th Grade)

ROBINSON'S FABULOUS FIRSTIES