"Boost Your Blog" Challenge No. 1 Winner

Polen's Pupils
http://polenspupils.blogspot.com/

Purpose of the "Boost Your Blog" blogging challenge:

• Provides fun bi-weekly supportive staff development activities to Johnson Elementary teachers to continue learning and interacting with their new blogs

• Spotlights different teachers' blogs to showcase great blogging while giving other teachers examples of how blogs can be used to support teaching.

Polen's Pupils Blog Info:
Students & Parents can have online access to the weekly classroom assignments
Value: Home-School connection Online hub for assignments for students Current Value: Students are following this blog
Future Value: Parents will see the purpose in following this class blog.

Johnson Elementary Blogs of the Week

Congratulations to ALL Johnson Teachers for beginning this challenge with blogging.

Spotlighted Teachers

Hickenbottom, Jiampa, Robinson, Mead

B1's Johnson Stem Blog (Hickenbottom)

Link: http://mrhsjohnsonstemblog.blogspot.com

Blog Info:

• A very comprehensive blog with an array of resources for students and parents
• View the daily reflections of the classroom activities & thinking of the teacher and students
• View schedule for daily classroom assignments & school/community events

Value:

• Home-School connection
• Online hub for assignments
• Online hub for links to academic resources and calendar of events

Current Value:

Students are currently following this blog

Future Value: Parents will see the purpose in following this class blog

Welcome to Mrs. Jiampa's Class Blog

Link: http://jiampa.blogspot.com/

Blog Info:

• View photos of Family Friday - Parents were involved with their children's classroom science lesson
• View video clip of a student discussing his learning
• View student engagement during a science lesson
• View photos of student work
• View embedded a thinking map document using the Web 2.0 tool Scribd - http://www.scribd.com/

Value:

• Home-School Connection Family Academic Involvement
• Videos of student thinking a students and this helps them to become more engaged

Current Value: Students are currently following this blog

Future Value: Parents will see the purpose in following this class blog

Robinson Road

Link: http://traveldownrobinsonroad.blogspot.com/

Blog Info:

• View an embedded online picture book which is perfect for beginning readers Web 2.0 tool used to embed this book was issuu - http://issuu.com/
• View a venue for reinforcing vocabulary with the "Picture of the Day"

Value: Home-School Connection Academic support in reading

Future Value: Students & Parents will see the purpose in following this class blog

Succeed with Ms. Mead

Link: http://succeedwithmead.blogspot.com/

Blog Info: Outrageous Ooze! - Read project description regarding Room 3's MSAP Project.

Value:

• Documenting science lessons and/or projects in the classroom
• Online Portfolio of the Room 3's MSAP Project

Future Value: Students & Parents will see the purpose in following this class blog

Learning 2 Use Widgets Effectively

This week in the Teacher Challenge with Edublogs we are learning how to get more out of our widgets on our sidebar. 

Well.. Here was my strategy before I placed any widgets on my blog.   I had to think about who would be my readers and would they even be interested in my widgets. So first I embedded the common ones Twitter and the subscription option. 

But from my Twitter, I learned of two interesting websites and embedded their widgets.

Widget 1: “Let Say Thanks”
This site provides visitors electronic Thank You Cards, created by children, which you can personalize and they would randomly send the cards to individual U.S. Troopers.
Badge link: http://www.letssaythanks.com/BlogBadge.aspx


Widget 2:   “FlyLadyTools” which is powered by BlogTalkRadio.

These are daily humorous and informative podcast episodes of helpful hints on how to get your day moving and organized while being being busy with your families and/or careers. You have three widget choices in which you can embed a player into your blog: Single Player, Multi-Player, or Add a Button.
Widget link:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/promote.aspx?HostID=19199