C4K #10

Mrs. Yollis third grade class blog was incredible.

I know she would not particularly like a comment like that but I plan to elaborate. Mrs Yollis a veteran teacher of 25 years prides herself on being a student one who never stops learning. I have come across people before that felt they were too smart to learn. Ha Ha !! I know that sounds totally crazy but that is how some people think. Mrs. Yollis attitude of lifelong learning helps her students relate to her in my opinion. She is a world traveler who is always looking for ways to improve her teaching and the quality of education she is able to give her students. There was a link that lead to her website and had a lot of good tips for teachers wanting to pursue technology in their classrooms. There was also lots of games to explore with your children. She claims "Open House" was her motivation to start her class blog. She explained how open house was exciting for parents, students, and teachers. The students seemed so excited to show their work and the blog is a way parents can stay connected on a daily basis. The educational pluses for the blog include students being able to revisit lessons when they read their blogs and the audience of their writings is so much broader than just the teacher. Students also learn how to navigate around the internet and they are able to present digital information in a variety of new ways. Students enjoy tracking their visitors with the cluster map in comparison they have had 72,060 and our class 48,860. I guess they are more interesting than we are. On the section of how to comment she walked you through the proper way to leave comments. Letter writing form is how she likes her students to practice leaving comments. This consist of greeting, body, closing and signature. A good comment should add information to the post, compliment the writer or ask a question. She explains how she only uses the children's first names and that you should never use personal information on a post. Parents are alerted when there are new post from the kids and encouraged to comment on these post. She also uses blogging buddies in the classroom to help each other with comments. Not showing good writing skills could cause a rejection in your comment. She motivates the class by offering extra points to the best blog. The students seemed very involved and their post were very good. I loved the section for the joke of the day, my children love it too. When I went and checked the blog out today I saw where the class had skyped with a class in Victoria, Australia. They shared information about America and Australia. I can only imagine how exciting this must have been for the students.
My comment this week was about fall. The question asked was why do trees leaves change colors. In my comment I explained that the absence of chlorophyll in the leaves makes them show colors that were already present. Also trapped glucose along with sunlight and cool fall night cause the purple and red leaves. I also complimented Mrs. Yollis and the whole class on their wonderful blog.