In my class, we adopted a new class mascot at the start of the year called Leo the Lion. The idea of a class mascot is nothing new. In fact, my good friend Linda Yollis has had her class mascot, Panda, for nearly 25 years! The fantastic thing is that now with blogs, class mascots […]
Blogging
Two Victorian Conferences
My team teaching partner, Kelly Jordan, and I have been accepted to present at two conferences in Melbourne in May. As many of you know, Kelly and I have been blogging with our primary classes since 2008 and it is something we are passionate about after seeing so many benefits. In our presentations, we plan […]
Family Blogging Afternoon
One of the many benefits of having a class blog is the strengthening of home-school relationships. After having a class blog for a number of years, I have come to realise that you can’t leave parent participation to chance. Parents needs to be educated and regularly encouraged and invited to be part of your class […]
Student and Teacher Blogging Challenges
Whatever stage you’re at with blogging, there is always something new to learn. Fortunately, there is a great community of educational bloggers online and many different ways to engage in professional learning available. Even if you’re the only blogger at your school, you are not alone! The Student Blogging Challenge and Teacher Blogging Challenge are […]
Blogging and the Ultranet
Note: this is not a critique of the Ultranet, rather it is advice on choosing the best platform for your students to get the most out of blogging. Over the past few months I have been approached by countless teachers asking for help and advice with the same issue… Their school leadership has told them […]
QuadBlogging
Update: David Mitchell launched the official QuadBlogging site in June 2011. Click here to find it. This is the place to go to sign up for quad blogging and find out all about it. **** If you’re on Twitter you may have heard the term QuadBlogging being thrown around lately. I first heard about it […]
My Journey with Global Collaboration
Bright Ideas is a blog by the School Library Association of Victoria and the State Library of Victoria. Rachel from Bright Ideas recently asked if I’d share with readers how I got involved in global collaboration and I was only too happy to help. Hopefully, together we can inspire more teachers to make connections globally […]
Five Steps to Starting a Class Blog
The school year began in Victoria, Australia last week. Many teachers have been thinking about the benefits of having a class blog and are keen to start their own class blog. I’ve been getting lots of questions about the process of starting a blog so I thought I would write a post to help get […]
New Blog Addresses
This week there was a change of domain name for Global Teacher and Global Student blogs. Victorian teachers and students now have one Edublogs campus site called Global2 to take us into 2011 and beyond. If you work in a Victorian government school and you want to start a blog, visit http://global2.vic.edu.au. If you had […]
2011 School Year Begins
Today was the first day back at school for teachers in Victorian Government Schools. All schools are spending the first three days on professional development and planning. This year my school is focussing on in-house professional development. Each Monday night teachers will be presenting on Literacy, Numeracy and ICT. I am in charge of ICT […]
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Follow Up: Overcoming Obstacles
In my last post, I wrote about some common obstacles that teachers put forward as to why they don’t blog or use technologies in their classrooms. I discussed lack of time, lack of equipment, lack of keyboarding skills and internet safety along with possible solutions to these issues. The comments on this post were very […]
Overcoming Obstacles
A few days ago I was honoured to be invited on the The Virtual Staffroom podcast. Chris Betcher interviewed Linda Yollis and me about our classroom blogging and collaboration. Click here to find the podcast or look up “The Virtual Staffroom” in iTunes. One of the topics that arose on the podcast was around getting […]
A Reflection on the Benefits of Classroom Blogging
I updated this post in March 2013. In August, 2017, I wrote a comprehensive post on The Edublogger about ten benefits of blogging. Most of you will know how passionate I am about blogging in the classroom. Since I started blogging with my students in 2008, I have come to realise how enormous the benefits […]
Goals for 2011
The school year begins for us in Victoria, Australia in a few weeks time. 2010 was a steep learning curve for me; I started to do a lot of things differently and this has influenced how I plan to approach the 2011 school year. I am again teaching Grade Two and, like 2010, I will […]
Literacy Skills and Blogging: How Far They’ve Come!
I’m always telling people how much my students’ literacy skills have improved through blogging. In my seven year teaching career, I have not come close to finding another medium that helps students to refine their reading and writing so well. Through advice from the inspirational teacher, Linda Yollis, I have been able to set very […]