This time it’s the parents’ turn to get blogging. Parents are invited to post a comment on this blog, their child’s blog or even another student’s blog. There are quite a few things on this blog which highlight some of the great work the students have been doing and it would be quite special to get feedback from some of the parents. Also, it would be great for parents to have a read of their child’s blog and see what they’re writing about. Students need to remember, though, that we are commenting experts so we will have to teach our parents how to write an appropriate comment so it doesn’t get trashed.

🙂

Do you have a favourite factual or lifestyle programme? I do; mine is American Pickers on A & E, Foxtel. I like to see the things they find from the past. They sometimes find some amazing objects that really bring social history to life and tell the story of how real people lived. The people the pickers meet can be incredibly interesting and they’ve often lived an exciting or unusual life. They can often be seen living on large areas of land with amazing collections of artifacts that the rest of us would class as trash. These collections have built up over many years and it’s fascinating to find out how and why these people got to this point in their lives. I also like the scenery that we get to see from the eastern states of America, some of it is quite stunning and it looks a beautiful place to live. The hosts are pretty interesting, too, and seem to be genuinely decent people.

Tell me about a factual or lifestyle programme that you like. Describe it and explain why you like it

Ok, as we get ready to head into our long Easter break we need to think about tidying up our blogs. By now each student who has been given a blog should have completed the following:

• Recent posts where the spelling and punctuation have been checked thouroughly by yourself and possibly another student
• A Clustr Map to keep track of visitors
• An About Me page which conforms to our strict safety rules
• A post about a favourite song
• A comment on someone else’s blog which also conforms to our commenting rules
• A header and background which are free to use, preferably your own photos

This week we will all have the usual 40 minute session during our literacy rotations, but you can always do extra at home and during recess and lunch should you wish. Once we’ve tidied up we’ll be ready for our next task. If you aren’t sure about anything you can ask me or one of the more experienced bloggers.  🙂

I’m so pleased with how everyone is trying to stick to the safe blogging rules and trying to comment appropriately on each others’ blogs. In fact, I think we’re doing so well that we need another challenge, so I’ve set a new task, well, two tasks actually. First, you need to create an “About Me” page. Use the Edublogs Help Guides on Pages to find out how to do it. The Guides are located on the top left of your dashboard and have a little life-belt image. Think carefully about the type of information you reveal – be very general and leave out personal information and specific details. For the second part you have to think of a song that has meaning for you. Write about why the song is important, what it means to you, how it makes you feel, what memory it brings back.

Finally, the new blogs are up and the students are really starting to find their feet. What has impressed me most is the care they have taken with their choices of headers and backgrounds. Prior to starting the blogs we all did a lot of work on copyright and internet safety and it’s clear that this has paid off with students creating and using their own images. The students are also thinking about the information they reveal about themselves and have tried their utmost to leave specific times, places and dates from their posts.

One of the great incentives for having a blog is that it forces us as writers to try and produce an error free product each time. While this isn’t always achieved it’s great to see students checking and revisiting their work in order to show themselves in the best light possible. One or two of us are still checking our writing following the initial excitement of simply getting some posts published and they will be polished up this week.

A special mention to Monika who has really taken to blogging in an impressive way.

Over the next few weeks the first group will develop their skills until they are ready to tutor the next set of budding bloggers. I hope we may even have the whole class online before the end of the first term.

Now the blogs have been created it’s about time we started moving things along. This week sees the first blogging task to be set for the new group of students bloggers. Hopefully, by the end of this week, it would be great to see all the blogs have a set theme, header, background and greeting. Also, an initial post to welcome people to your blog would be a great idea, or, if you feel ready, a post on a topic you feel is worth sharing with the world. Don’t forget, all posts and images need to adhere to our strict code of conduct. The writing has to be clear and accurate and the images must either be your own or licensed for re-use. Good luck and have fun!