May
31
Does Spelling Matter?
May 31, 2007 | 8 Comments
Some people think that spelling should not matter. I disagree. While spelling rules are relaxed with informal writing like IM and text messaging, good spelling is important when writing for publication. Students need to be cognizant of this fact.
Mindy McAdams, a journalism professor, author, and blogger, compares using poor spelling skills to spilling food on your clothes:
Bad spelling makes [...]
May
27
“The Order”
May 27, 2007 | 1 Comment
UPDATE: In this video clip, I share a story I wrote during my senior year of high school. Originally, I posted this video to YouTube in December 2006. I was not able to share this video with students, however, because content filters blocked the site.
Uploading and using video hosted on TeacherTube allows me to share content with [...]
May
19
Pay Attention
May 19, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Our district and state servers filter out videos from MySpace and YouTube in an effort to protect our students. Unfortunately, there has been content on these sites that I wished to use in my classroom. I had read on other blogs about alternative sites for posting video content and I began to search for these outlets. [...]
May
12
Working with pictures
May 12, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Recently, my classes visited a blog where the teacher had posted a photo and invited visitors to identify the unusual object pictured. Can you figure it out?
If you are stumped, then visit the Blogicians at Blogical Minds to read some of the guesses and visit Mr. Fisher’s class blog to learn the answer.
May
12
Too many choices
May 12, 2007 | Leave a Comment
One of the problems I have is that I love to mess around with things. I keep changing the look of my site. I am doing the same thing with the class blog. My students like the new look on our class blog. Now that I have some readers, I guess I had better settle [...]
May
6
Life After Death by PowerPoint
May 6, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Life After Death by PowerPoint
I found this amusing video by Don McMillan posted on Jeff Utech’s U Tech Tips web site. This humorous presentation highlights some of the mistakes many make when using PowerPoint.
May
6
Overwhelmed and Encouraged
May 6, 2007 | Leave a Comment
I am flat-out overwhelmed. A few months ago, I introduced my students to blogging by showing them a blog I had created for our class. Students could use this blog to post responses to assigned journal entries instead of writing them by hand in a notebook.
After a few of these assignments, I lost interest in [...]
May
4
Commenting Works
May 4, 2007 | 2 Comments
Vickie Davis of coolcatteacher is right. Writing meaningful comments on an author’s blog leads to conversation.
My students posted comments to several blogs in response to those authors’ reviews of the novel Speak. Then I had my students post their own reviews of the novel on our blog.
While moderating their comments -live-and projecting the process on [...]
May
3
Growth in Web 2.0
May 3, 2007 | 1 Comment
I have struggled instituting blogging in my classroom. Why??? Limited access to computers for my students…uncertainty with ways to incorporate blogging into my curriculum. I became frustrated and discouraged. I witnessed so much excitement from others who are using technology in their classroom, while I struggled with finding a way to get started.
Recently, however, I [...]
