Quality Commenting Update.

In January I took part in a quality commenting meme started at the Langwitches blog.  I returned to school in February with renewed enthusiasm to teach and support my class to write quality comments.  I have not expected them at this early stage to write blog posts.  Rather I have put my efforts into teaching about quality commenting.  Many of the students have made a flying start - the experienced ones.  I still need to support those less experienced.

I prepared the  following slideshare, to use with my class. The slides I made contain comments from my students of last year.  I am not sure if they were horrified to see them, but I was!  

Commenting presentation

View more presentations from Miskaytea.

Here are a couple of comments left by students on the class blog.  I am delighted with the stepping up that the students have managed since our exploration about commenting.

Great video Miss T! What movie making tool did you use? I guess I’m very lucky getting the opportunity to go sailing!

I was really surprised how easy it was to sail. I’m also glad there was two to a boat because it was really hard sailing back to shore with just me to a boat. I also think I was lucky that I was with Jordan because he was really good at controlling the sail. I got better at steering as the day went on and by the end of the day we could easily avoid crashing against other boats. (If we didn’t want to ram into them)

I’m also a little disappointed because for most of the day there wasn’t much wind so we had to skull. (using the rudder/steering to propel us along slowly) But when the wind picked up, Jordan and I went speeding across the waves.

Hope we can do more of the same fun activities during the year, Antonio.

Hi Miss T,
I really enjoyed the the Yachting yesterday. It was fun, and wet. During the day, I had 2 partners, Cameron (before lunch) and Neo (after lunch). I ended up in 3 yachts though. 1,6, and 1. I really wanted to go in a red yacht, but they were all taken, so I used 2 white yachts instead.

Dean was really fun, and enthusiastic about yachting. He made sure that he told us all the safety precautions, gave us all a life jacket, thermal under layer, and a water proof top.

I really enjoyed the Yachting and I really want to do it again.
Daniel S

Hi Miss T,
Nice video, I really enjoyed the yachting as well. I was quite surprised about easy it was to get the yacht going. I held the sail while Monique steered. The hardest part of the day was getting in a line and swapping boats in the middle of the lagoon. The best part was the two races because Monique and I came first in one and second in the other.  During the boat swap the boat Monique got into floated away from the one I was in, so for the second half I was with Cameron.

The only negative of the whole day was almost suffocating in the terribly hot thermals underneath the bulky life jackets, and leaving to go back to school of course. 

The instructor , Dean was really nice, he gave me a ride on his boat and did spins and stuff. He made sure we were all completely safe at all times.

The yachting was a great experience and I can’t wait to get the display up!

Have you ever been on a yacht?

Teegan

All comments are far superior to anything written last year.  Thank you to the initiator of the meme and a special thank you to Kathleen Morris.

Setting up Pages on my Blog.

       "Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the staircase." Marting Luther King.

My blog now has two extra pages.  When I began the teacher blogging challenge I had no About Me page, nor did I have a contact form.  I see these two new pages as being obvious ones for any blog.  Now it is going to take me awhile to think of what other pages I need or want to add.  Hence the Martin Luther King quote, in honour of the date yesterday/today!

I did have a brief About Me on the sidebar.  I have done a little spring cleaning to that. I have changed the words About Me, to read Welcome.  I have also shortened what I have placed there.  Instead I now have a full About Me page.  I have chosen a few photos that give a brief overview.  I note to myself that I prefer to be behind a camera, rather than in front of it. This year I think I will make sure that I get some more, so I can put a few of me in the classroom, into my About Me page.

I did some thinking about a Contact Me Form and decided to give it its own page.  To have this somewhere on my blog is important.  Last year I missed a comment from a teacher who was inviting our class to join The Bloggers Cafe. We had skyped earlier in the year, and H Miller was inviting us to some more collaboration through this blog.  I missed the comment of invitation, it went straight to spam and I only found it a few weeks ago.  Fortunately we can join in this year, but I can see that a Contact form is vital.

On my classroom page, pages were made naturally as the need arose, over the last few years.  I think it will be more difficult to decide the other pages on my teacher blog. I have a few ideas, possibly a page on the kinds of tools I have explored in my class.  Another page could contain my goals for 2011 and so on.  I think both those pages would be of benefit because it would either strike a spark for other teachers that they might try something similar.  Or they may have some pertinent advice to give that would save me a lot of mucking around in my learning. Self taught is great, but sometimes not the most economical!

Image: 'El cañon del Antilope, Antelope canyon.'

http://www.flickr.com/photos/29059230@N00/4017213798

Teacher Blogging Challenge 1.

My Life as a Blogger

When did you start blogging?

I began with a classroom blog in 2009.  I started that blog in edublogs and it is one I pay for.  I started this teacher one a little while later, to find out what blogspot was like in relation to edublogs.  I also started a personal blog in wordpress to see how that operated.

What did you learn about the different platforms?

Edublogs is my first preference.  I like the way it operates very much.  I don't spend enough time looking at the ins and outs of blogspot, so I can't say I am any expert in it. It does the basics for me.  The Wordpress one is fine, because edublogs uses wordpress.  What I don't like in wordpress, my one, is that you can't post videos unless you pay, and you can't put in other flash type widgets.  So I found out I had made a very good choice using Edublogs.

Why did you start blogging?
I started blogging because for a number of years I had wanted to publish student work on line.  Eventually I decided blogging would do that for me.  I explored blogging a little and set up an edublog during our summer break in January 2009.

So how did that go?
Well it was a very steep learning curve setting up that blog.  There was no one at my school who blogged, nor anyone that I knew anywhere.  I spent hours reading edublogs tips etc!  Each time I mastered something I felt really good.  When I noticed a challenge in March 2009 I joined it and sort of did it.  I began to learn about widgets etc.  I can remember the first time I tried to put in a pet widget, I spent hours!  Eventually I found a post on a student's blog from Miss W's class that gave the instructions in enough detail for me to be successful.  I blush now to admit how hard it was.  Now my students do it in a blink of an eye.  I began to want to add videos. Again that was a steep learning curve, as I tried out Windows Movie Maker.  I got there. I am someone who perseveres!

What was your most exciting moment?
I am not sure of this one, there were many mini exciting moments!  First of all the pride in mastering each new step.  However as the first challenge went on, it was things such as making contact with teachers in other countries.  Learning from them.  Last year I got a huge buzz out of the fact I could show Mrs Yollis' video on commenting to my class.  While I had started blogging initially to showcase my students' writing, I now realized that blogging opened me and my classroom up to the world.

Any other stand out moments?
We have been able to keep in contact with students who went to Australia, to Washington DC and now one is going to Tonga.  They all went because of Dad's jobs.  These students have kept in contact through the blog and a little skypeing!

What motivates me to blog?
I have a belief in it.  It has come from myself, no one else has said do it.  I like it.  I don't post so often on this my teacher blog. However I intend to remedy that this year.  Up until now much of my time has gone into the classroom blog and student blogging.  Now I have a team of students who can help others so now I am free to pursue my own interests!

So what next?
In 2011 I intend continuing the class blog, and setting up new students with their own blogs.  For this blog I want to track my development of my writing and reading programmes in my classroom.  I also want to make some videos for my classroom blog to share with parents about our learning in Maths, Reading and Writing.  And talking about parents. Well I would really like to try and get them interacting more with the class blog.  I had about 3 interacting last year. I want to up that!

What advice do I have for teachers beginning to blog?
Get in there and do it.  Ask for help.  I would ask around when I began, on other teacher's blogs. Mostly I got answers. Occasionally I didn't.  Learn as you go.  You don't have to do it perfectly.  There are still things I don't get perfectly, but from others you eventually pick it up.  One such instance for me was attribution of pictures.  Thanks Miss W. who did a great job there, educating us.  The other word of advice is read other class blogs. That is another place I learned. Oh, they can do that? So I can too! Be a copy cat!  Kids get so upset when others copy them!  I see it as a way to learn.  Of course I am not talking about out and out copying word for word.  But getting ideas.

What am I most proud of?
My student blogs!  Some of them have taken blogging to a higher level than myself!  I think of Teegan who entered my class after the middle of the year.  She took to blogging like a duck to water, it was a joy to behold.  Some of them haven't got that far!  It's okay.  I am still reflecting on boundaries for my students with blogging.  I want it to be their own, where they make most of the choices.  However I also recognise it is a student blog and they have certain responsibilities and tasks to accomplish.  I am still working on that one.  Also some of them get their blogs so full of bling that it is overkill.  My pet hate on my students' blogs?  Sounds that keep going when you arrive on the blog.  I HATE THAT!
So what is your pet hate?